


Our Best Interests

by FFIC0



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Childhood Friends, Developing Relationship, F/M, Growing Up Together, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn, Species Swap, Transformation, Turians, s l o w burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 44
Words: 280,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21598429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FFIC0/pseuds/FFIC0
Summary: There is always a brief moment before finalizing these kinds of decisions where everyone sobers up and considers whether or not it is right. But they have colonies disappearing and the threat of something they do not even fully understand looming over their heads. They will allow the ends to justify the means for now. It has worked to varying degrees of success before, and right now they have nothing to lose.This has been in the works for several years and I have to stop stalling. I hope that it speaks to you in some way. !AU
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Garrus Vakarian/Original Female Turian Character(s), Original Female Turian Character(s)/Original Male Turian Character(s)
Comments: 63
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in the works for several years. I have to pull the trigger on publishing it.  
> Written and interleaved from multiple perspectives.  
> As a warning: read through this knowing that at any point there may be graphic depictions which some might find disturbing.

She can hear her father purring to her as she rests safely inside his cowl. Nothing feels more safe and more comfortable than this place. The steady, unwavering, rolling purr fills her head and keeps her calm. The room is small and drab and dim, and the air has a smell to it, but her father’s scent is just so pleasant and fragrant that she can forget about all of that.

It begins to change. It seems that only yesterday she would see his face and rest here for the entire day, but now she sees less of him. Where does he go?

* * *

He remembers his parents were under a bit of tension due to a disagreement about whether or not to send him to mixed-species school. He was not sure what the problem was or even really what that meant. How could it matter what species his classmates are?

He does not remember moving from where he was born on Palaven and, according to his parents, spent about two years of his life. His mother insists that plans to move here had been in the “works” for some time. His father argues that he does not know what she is talking about.

His parents seemed to have differing ideas about what would be best for him. His mother adamantly insisted that he go to primary academy on Bridge, where the systems are more progressive and cater more towards the interests of the individual. His father had pushed to move back to Palaven and send him to an academy there, where the systems are more traditional and integrate the individual with turian society. His mother always wins arguments, however.

He has grown up on Bridge surrounded by humans and turians all the same. So far, in his three years living here and building memories, he has grown used to their presence to such an extent that it feels strange to consider what life would be like without them around. Bridge’s fusion of cultures is home to him, and he has learned that a lot of the foods, entertainment, and people he likes are a consequence of the human-turian integration.

The Crosse-Vexus academy was established by the two champions of Bridge, created to strengthen the human-turian alliance after an uneasy, mysterious, and unpopular period of first contact. Its beautiful architecture is a testament to its modernity and the cooperation between species. The organic forms are directly inspired by human design which the turians adopted in full.

It seems turians have always had a fascination with building challenging structures lacking in straight edges and right angles, just to see how close to perfect curvature they might achieve. And it appears to be just the architecture here that has this style, because his obsession with starships has granted him the knowledge that turians are all about angles when it comes to space travel. And weaponry, armor, appliances, ground-based vehicles, etc…

Garrus Vakarian is ready. He is anxious to begins his career as an honored citizen of the Hierarchy and he is thirsty for knowledge. Perhaps he is also hungry for companionship as well, as it has been difficult for him to find other children his age to stay attached to. He is still just as nervous about meeting new people as always.

He has come armed with his sketchpad and a rucksack with some materials in preparation for his first day. He supposes it is unorthodox to aspire to be an engineer and an artist when most turians wish to achieve tiers in the military, but he wants to create things with his mind and his hands. He has a universe inside his head that he desires to bring forth into reality.

Humans and turians, both old and young, mill about. Already, perhaps out of anxiety, he does not want to have anything to do with anyone despite his attempts to convince himself that he should make an effort to meet new people. He moves off to an unoccupied corner of the recess field and starts drawing a starship – like the ones his mother designs. Her designs are another story.

His mother’s designs are magnificent artistic and technical achievements which defy traditional design paradigms, unifying functionality with beauty; there is a reason her name is well-known in the industry. He wants to be able to do that because, in his eyes, there is no greater accomplishment than what his mother is able to do with such fluency and confidence. Her aura changes when he picks up a writing utensil, even if just to jot down a note on her task list or her journal.

Garrus looks up when he feels the footsteps through the ground and smells a distinctly human scent. He finds this one oddly pleasant, reminding him of the flowers that grow around his home: _arcoma_ as they are called here. This human child looks determined to find out what he is doing with his sketchpad and his focused expression. He prepares for whatever kind of assault she is planning by putting down his work and fixing her with his gaze.

She is radiant. Her short, untamed, red-tinted fringe is a beacon to her head and her deep-amber eyes slice through the atmosphere. He wonders if she even belongs here. But then she smiles at him and asks him what he is working on, breaking him out of his stupor. He hardly understands the feeling of having someone take a genuine interest in what he does because usually they just bail out before he can get anywhere with an explanation. So he begins to show her. He does not even know what her name is, only that she wants to know about what he likes to do.

The human girl admires his work and then hesitates a bit, the smile growing on her face as she looks it over.

“What is? A starship?” she asks.

_Yes!_ Garrus trills with excitement in response.

“Wa? What was that silly noise?” she giggles.

“Oh… I’m just happy,” _I am happy,_ he replies, his mandibles twitching. She cocks her head slightly and giggles.

“Me too! Can I… make some sujestions?” she asks, somewhat timidly. Her eyes flick over his drawing, inspecting it for its potential viability. Her voice is sweet and musical, and surprisingly smooth compared to most of the nasally, whiny, grating sounds he hears from just about every other human child of her approximate age.

He wants to be skeptical and defend his work from criticism, but he remembers what his mother has always told him: “your work can always improve – take every opportunity to learn from others because they might surprise you.”

So he honors her words and prepares to hear what this human female has to say.

“Yes… please. Let’s work together,” _you and I,_ he squeaks out, his throat already dry from all the silence he has been sitting in.

She beams at him, flashing nearly a full set of straight, white teeth with one of her canines missing. To his pleasant surprise she starts to point out flaws with his design that he had not noticed.

“I fink, right here,” she points to a section of the wing where he has placed the engines, “it might be too bendy.”

She picks up a twig from the planter nearby and pushes on it to illustrate how the narrow strut he used in his drawing would deflect under the load of a thruster.

“It would do this,” she pushes on the twig as if the engine were driving it, and as it deflects the direction of the engine also changes, collapsing it into the body of the craft itself. She makes an explosion sound effect with her mouth and an exaggerated motion with her hands which brings the laugh out from the roots of his heart.

She picks up another stick and holds it at an angle.

“Another one makes it strong, like a big bridge,” Garrus feels stupid for not noticing this – her simple explanation makes it so obvious. He cannot help the smile that starts in his chest and spreads into his face as they work together to improve his initial idea. They are really getting into it when the first-period alert goes off. The girl sighs and smiles.

“My name is Lia. Find me at break,” she commands with confidence, as if it so obvious.

“I’m Garrus. I will… see you there,” _I hope so_ , Garrus offers his wrist. Lia looks down and furrows her brow before grasping it the proper turian way, palming his forearm and curling her tiny little fingers around it. She gives a one-tooth-missing flash of teeth and then takes off. Garrus wonders why they have to be in separate groups.

* * *

She has been itching to begin academy. The pre-year one programs can only satisfy her to an extent, but her mind requires more input. Now she is prepared for her official debut as a year one student at the Crosse-Vexus academy. Her parents want her to be able reach out and connect with more types of people because they are… “worried” about her.

Thus far she has made no lasting friends; more like acquaintances who she knows during the day and then never talks to outside of school. It is not their fault, she just does not find them particularly engaging. The kinds of things she is interested in go over their heads. After school she shows little interest in spending time with other children. She does not understand why her parents seem so concerned with her behavior.

She is nervous, of course, because large crowds of new people in unfamiliar places always make her nervous. She convinces herself not be scared and that she will find at least one person here to call her friend. Someone has to be as interested as she is making things. She wants to go to space one day in a starship that she will design. It will be the fastest, strongest, and most revered in the galaxy, of course.

Lia Shepard’s parents drop her off and it is like she has the floor ripped out from under her. She does not know anyone here and she must now fend for herself in the midst of a cacophony of new sights, sounds, and even smells. She refuses to cry. She refuses to allow herself to be overwhelmed.

Things are already going on. She can see that there are already groups of other children playing on the recess fields. She feels lost because she does not want to butt in. Everything and everyone already seem to have inertia.

She has not brought much with her – just an empty backpack with a datapad for school. There is little she can do as she waits for first period to start.

She scans the field and immediately finds the most interesting individual present: a small, gangly turian sitting apart from everyone, all alone. He is completely absorbed in whatever he is doing over there and, to her utter amazement, no one seems to notice or care.

But _she does_ , and she wants to know what he is up to. She has never seen a turian child up close, let alone one who sits so patiently and focuses heavily on a task. Whereas human children tend to vocalize and make noise, turian children are quiet, squirmy, and incredibly mobile.

Lia marches straight up to the turian boy and smiles. She hears a chirp from him as she moves in and sits down next to him. From a distance she gathered that he was drawing something and now she has to find out what it is. It feels like her mission. She has observed enough to know that artists among turians are uncommon. Artistry is highly regarded among turians as an extremely valuable skill because it shows vision, mastery of motor skills, observation skills, planning, and creativity. Her turian is a rare find indeed.

She asks him what he is working on, even though she can clearly see it is a starship, in order to break the ice. She can tell it would fly because he is included all the components: element zero core, thrusters, a sleek hull, proper weapon placement, a CIC, a med bay, crew quarters, galley, hangar bay. All the details are there, as if he has photographed the starship. He knows things and she wants to learn from him, but she spots problems and she wants to help him improve his design as well. When their starship flies, it will truly be the best ever conceived.

She completely loses all pretense of manners and loses herself in his sketch, imagining what it would be like to see it in front of them. The turian boy makes an adorable sounding trill which shocks her a bit. She has not heard _that_ sound before.

At least he seems just as terrified of new people as she is, so she is tries her best to quell his discomfort. She does not want to scare him off. He replies kindly, explaining that he is happy. Her smile deepens into her cheeks even more. It is not often that she has the venerable distinction of making someone else people _happy._

But the hard part is asking if she can provide input to his design because she does not know how he will respond. He seems nice-enough, but at this point questioning his judgment might turn him against her, somehow. But she asks anyway, taking possibly the biggest risk of her life.

“Can I make some sujestions?” she struggles with the word a bit and feels irritated with herself.

The turian boy fixes her with a pensive stare and she watches his brilliant cobalt irises as they flick away for a moment and then back to her. After he pauses for consideration his little mandibles flare out and he accepts her critique. She enjoys the sound of his voice with its multiple layers and smooth timbre.

She just now realizes he has been speaking to her in English this entire time.

Lia wants to be sure that her critique is justified to the best of her ability and demonstrate why some of his design decisions should be revised. They work together to improve what he has. Most importantly, he defends some of his design choices and even convinces her of their validity. This is what she wants: to question and collaborate. No one she has met before has done this except her parents. The turian boy has information and the knowledge to teach her and the flexibility to accept changes. She already likes him. A lot. She feels a fire in her chest, one that seems to physically hurt until she places her hand over it.

When the bell rings to call them into class she realizes that she does not know what his name is, nor does he know hers because she did not introduce herself.

“I’m Lia, meet me at break,” she says with confidence. They will continue their work and then they will conquer the galaxy together.

“I’m Garrus, I will… see you there,” he offers his wrist to her and she stares for a moment, trying to remember the turian version of a handshake. The one who responds places their palm over the forearm of the one who offers the gesture, showing trust and gratitude. She completes the exchange and heads off, looking forward to their next meeting.

* * *

Ten minutes into the first class and he is already bored. The teacher is having then go around and say something “interesting” about themselves. Garrus wants to learn something about the universe; he does not particularly care about his peers unless they wish to collaborate as well. No one there mentions anything about starships or design or music. What are they going to do with themselves with no motivation or discipline to improve?

He keeps his mouth shut because he would be ousted by his classmates for being “too different.” Their human teacher does give him a sidelong glance when he mentions that he enjoys playing guitar and that he has taken lessons for two years. It is a mistake. He should not have mentioned it.

Turians have weird, mixed hang-ups about artists: they are at once revered and despised for different reasons that no one has ever agreed upon. Also, because of his blunder, he will henceforth be a pariah because he chooses to play a human-originated instrument, despite the fact that turians have their own equivalent which is virtually identical. And they will judge him for finding enjoyment in something that turians did not invent, as if being turian should force him to reject all other cultural influence.

Come break time he immediately seeks out Lia to escape his classmates. He finds her quickly, tracking her by scent. Since their first meeting before class, they have an incomplete objective and they must pursue it with ingenuity and creativity. She offers him part of her snack immediately, thrusting half of the power bar in his direction without giving him an opportunity to deny it.

“Thank you, Lia” _you didn’t need to_ , he says quietly, feeling inexplicably warm. He takes it from her and munches on it, purring softly. It is a popular brand on Bridge designed to play well with both turian and human digestive systems.

He only finds it fair if he shares half his snack with her: a naxa fruit, originally from Palaven and cultivated on Bridge. He enjoys them a lot and he knows they are popular with other turians, but he has not seen many humans who also eat them. Hopes that Lia likes it, otherwise he will feel guilty about not holding up his side of their implicit exchange.

“Do you like it?” _I hope,_ Garrus asks, worried when she does not immediately respond. Lia stares at him for a moment, chewing with gusto.

“I love it!” she takes another bite from her half of the pale, almost silvery fruit, “My favfforite!”

Garrus is relieved, for whatever reason. He is more preoccupied worrying about what she thinks of his opinions and him as a person that he has ever been before with any other peer. When she is done chewing she gives the order, “let’s get to work.”

They resume their mission until the break ends. He tunes out the world around them and focuses on their work and what she has to share with him. He knows nothing about where she comes from or what her parents do or how she has obtained the knowledge she possesses, but right now it is not important. The bell breaks them from their concentration. Lia tells him to find her at lunch as well, to which he easily agrees.

* * *

Lia is intensely disappointed. In the first several hours of class time no one even comes close to having anything as interesting to say as Garrus did _in the first five minutes_ she spoke with him. She spends the next hours of their pre-break class period thinking about where to take their design. If anyone notices how distracted she is then they do not bring it up, or perhaps they do not care.

They do not do anything particularly engaging on the first day because they are still getting everyone settled. She counts down the seconds until break, which stretch out longer and longer, and _longer_ and it takes _forever_.

Lia marches straight from the hallway out into the crisp mid-morning air, and surveys the courtyard for her new friend. She cannot stop the smile that breaks across her face when she sees his slender figure among the others. It is really the way he moves that she can recognize immediately: unnaturally confident and controlled for someone as thin and wiry as himself.

“Hey Garrus!” Lia greets him and hands him half of her power bar without hesitation. They are going to need to replenish their energy for full mental capacity. Garrus returns the gesture, offering up some of his snack. It is a simple exchange, but it means so much more to her than she expects. It is puzzling.

She takes the half of the naxa fruit he has handed her and takes a bite. She is familiar with it; naxa is like the turian version of kiwi. She remembers she tried one once before and enjoyed it immensely. When she experienced a mild allergic reaction to it she had immediately gone to the doctor where they fixed her. “Permanently” they said. After a week of a mild sickness she was told she was now free to have her favorite levo-protein based foods.

* * *

When class finally lets out at the end of the day he does not want to leave her just yet. They are not done yet with their project and tomorrow… what if she ceases to exist? His first day of class was not very eventful so he has to make up the lost time by spending what little he has left of it with her.

Their multiple teachers specializing in miscellaneous subjects are doing their best, but his mind is too preoccupied. Luckily he and his classmates are getting it easy this week because homework will be kept to an absolute minimum while they settle in. Garrus’ former education with a personal tutor cultivated a sense of purpose and discipline, so he is used to working on exercises and meeting deadlines. His routine means a great deal to him. According to Lia, she is also capable of organizing herself, but that remains to be seen.

He can already tell they are going to be friends for the rest of their lives.

He does the only thing he can think of to keep her from leaving just yet: he invites her to come over to his home. She practically vibrates in excitement about the prospect. He just hopes his parents will allow it.

“Garrus!” _my boy, my pride,_ he hears his father’s voice cut through the air. His parents are here to take him home, “first day treat you well?” _no problems I should know of?_

_None!_ “ _Pa!_ It was fine!” _listen please,_ “I made a new friend.”

_Oh?_ “Who is your new friend?” his parents kneel to speak to him. Garrus gestures in Lia’s direction.

“Lia! I want to invite her to come with us, we’re working on a important project together!” _very important!_

_School-related? Already?_ “I thought they were going to give you some time before they piled on homework,” _perhaps that’s different here._

_Well, not-exactly,_ “No we’re working on it. Just us.”

His father looks like he might object but his mother gives him her signature glare and he backs down.

_Tell me,_ “What is your project, Garrus?” his mother asks, sounding considerably less objectionable than his father.

_I show you!_ “Here,” he pulls out his datapad and shows the diagrams and sketches he and Lia have been working on. He waits for his mother’s judgment while she scans over the drawing carefully and then turns to his father. She vocalizes to him in their _bonded language_ and receives a defeated-sounding reply from Castis. Lia approaches them.

_There you are!_ “You must be Lia,” his mother is quite outwardly happy to meet her, trilling and chirping while the little human unleashes a wave of excited speech. Lia seems to be way more comfortable around older people than the children her age, as if her mind has grown up ahead of her.

Garrus notices how Lia has a mystical ability to ask his parents questions about him without making it awkward. She excitedly talks about how they are working together to design a starship: the _best_ starship. His mother is just as excited as he is to hear about this. His father is as stoic as ever, but Garrus can tell he feels the energy.

Lia greets her parents when they show up and they both look a bit rattled by the sudden barrage of requests from their daughter. Garrus feels an infinite sense of relief when she returns to his side with the approval she needs.

While Lia’s mother is speaking with her daughter he notices Lia’s father approach Castis and say something to him quietly. His father’s mandibles flick once and then he nods. Garrus cocks his head and wonders what he said that garnered such a mysterious reaction from his father. However, this is no point in wondering because he and Lia have much to do.

They spend the rest of the day working on their project in his room at home. Garrus’ little sister Solana takes a liking to Lia and sits quietly with them while they work. Lia makes a point to show his little sister their progress despite her inability to fully understand it at this age. Lia eventually asks him to play guitar for her and he obliges. He is not very good with only one year under his plates, but he does his best. Lia seems impressed that he can play the instrument at all.

His father makes them dinner – his work as a peacemaker and diplomat in the wake of the First Contact events made him well-versed in human culture, so he can predict something Lia might like. He is also an amazing cook in general, a skill that his mother never stops swooning over and talking about.

Garrus is sad to watch Lia go when their day is finally over but knows he will continue to see her at school, finally finding the confidence to believe in tomorrow. If they are lucky they will eventually have classes together. There are enough incoming students that they have to be separated at the start, but they will not remain separated for long. Their education will break up into project groups and classes based on their interests. He and Lia share interests so he has _hope_.

_What a sweet girl,_ “Lia is quite lovely. Very polite, very bright. I’m happy that you found someone to spend time with,” _I truly am._ His mother remarks.

_That is true,_ “Not to mention well-mannered and mature for her age. You may invite her over whenever you please, Garrus,” Any kind of compliment from his father is a big deal – even _Garrus_ does not receive those often. There must be something truly special about his new friend.

* * *

In her classes she struggles to keep up with the writing exercises the teacher has them work through. She destroys the math problems, spatial reasoning, and the design problems, however. For whatever reason she feels distant from her classmates, and she already has this feeling that she is an outcast for some reason. She just does not fit into the groups that have already precipitated out of the crowd. Garrus already provided her with a sense of safety and resolution.

Lia dreads the end of the day because it will mean she will have to wait until tomorrow to see Garrus, which is _unacceptable._ She goes and hunts him down when school lets out. He surprises her when he asks if she would like to come over and continue to work on their project. She is going to have to ask her parents about that, but she does not even think twice about accepting his offer.

She quietly watches Garrus’ mother ask him about how his day was and who his friend is. Garrus relays the plan to his mother and she immediately accepts with fluttering mandibles. Lia does not fail notice the glare she gives her mate when he attempts to object. She decides to become involved with the conversation and help Garrus explain their project. She talks with his mother for a while, finding out where Garrus inherited his bent for design.

She shies away from speaking with Garrus’ father, who towers above two and a half meters and scares her, but not in the way that a monster is scary – more in the way that thinking about the sheer, profound scale of the universe is scary.

His mother, however, draws her in immediately. The similarities between Garrus and his mother are striking – but Garrus does have some of his father’s imposing quality despite being shorter than herself. She likes their clan markings and knows, for once, not to ask why Garrus does not have his. She has learned that turians obtain clan markings when they are of age. The specific age varies between clans. When Lia’s parents finally arrive she obtains permission from them. She is practically overwhelmed when they agree.

“Mommy, daddy!”

“Sweetie!” her mother beams and bends down to hug her.

“Hello Lee-ya!” her father booms, “survived your first day? That’s my little girl!”

“Daddy, mommy, I have a queschin my best friend Garrus are going to build a starship can I go over to his house please?”

Her parents take a moment to process the run-on sentence and the indication of who “Garrus” is.

“Well…” her father looks over, sizing up the Vakarians. Her father’s eyes narrow for a moment, in some kind of mysterious recognition, before he snaps back. She sees the barest hint of a nod come from Mr. Vakarian to which her father nods back, “of course you can, cupcake!”

“Yay! Thanks!” she squeals.

Out of the corner of her eye she watches her father gesture for Mr. Vakarian to listen to something he has to say. The turian bows and her father speaks into the side of his head while passing him something with his hand – almost too quickly to notice. She frowns and wonders what that is about.

She does not dwell. Her mother, who also appears to have no qualms about this, nods and encourages her, “have a fun time sweetie. And remember: manners. If they serve you dinner make sure you thank them.”

“I will. I am polite, donchu worry. Thanks, mommy,” she gives her mother a final hug and then returns to the company of Garrus’ family. She boards his parents’ very comfortable and spacious skaivette and sits well within his personal space so they can share the datapad.

The Vakarian household is roomy and the ceilings tower above them. It has to be because turians are so tall. Garrus’ father is practically on stilts. The air temperature is perfectly neutral, which is still warmer than she prefers, but she knows that turians come from a desert planet where they are naturally adjusted to the heat. Garrus wastes no time dragging her to his room.

One of the first things she notices as they enter his vaulted room is how pleasant it smells. She cannot quite describe what it is but it makes her feel at home already. It is a crisp, cool scent which distracts her from the heat of the air. It relaxes her to be in his space; perhaps it relaxes her more to be with her friend.

The other thing she notices is a beautiful acoustic guitar-like instrument resting gracefully on a cushioned stand, with some kind of complex-looking, carriage-like mechanism clamped onto a heavily-modified, skeletal neck. She starts to think about it. She wants to ask where on Bridge he obtained this instrument or how it was developed, but it really does look like a hybrid turian-human version of an otherwise human-designed guitar.

As they work on their project more but Lia begins to succumb to the need to know how it is Garrus plays guitar with his ridiculous lack of fingers. How he can properly manipulate the six-stringed instrument with fewer digits? She thinks about how he might play the piano, as she has recently started practicing, and cannot quite wrap her head around it.

“Hey Garrus,” he looks up from their drawing and she gestures to the instrument, “Can you play me a song?”

“Uh… sure. I’m not very good -”

“I don’t care,” she smiles at him, “mommy says making mistakes is the only way to im- improve.”

When he picks up the instrument he does so with the cool confidence of an expert, like it belongs in his grasp. He checks the tuning without needing a tuner, slides the complex-looking carriage assembly down the neck, and flicks three of the mechanical fingers down onto the strings. He uses both of his hands on the neck and strums with whichever finger is free. Sometimes he slams his fingers down for a percussive sound. Other times he quickly adjusts the carriage assembly to a new position on the neck and changes the configuration of the mechanical fingers.

All while playing.

He makes up for the versatility of ten fingers with the precision, dexterity, and flexibility of six. She had no idea turian fingers could move like that. He plays her a couple of chords and melodies to the best of his ability and he _owns_ it. It is endearing to see and hear him make mistakes, it makes her own mistakes feel acceptable.

“Wow,” her eyes are wide as he concentrates, suddenly hitting all of the notes in order without a blunder, generating a seamless uninterrupted harmony. In that moment of perfection it is like she can hear into the future. She can tell that he will never let reality hold him back or stop him from reaching his goals. He is not going to back down from this challenge simply because he finds it too difficult. It is inspiring to see him face it – it makes her want to go home and really start focusing on her own musical practice. She wants to know what it is like to enjoy playing music with the same depth that he clearly does.

To her surprise, his father makes dinner. She had not expected the scary older turian to suddenly turn around her preconceptions and make some amazing food. The dish is some breaded chicken thing she does not know the name of – according to him it is a variation on a turian dish adapted for the human immune system. When she reveals that she can safely consume and process both dextro and levo cuisine he seems shocked, but only briefly.

She does want to leave but her parents come over and take her anyway. They exchange words with Garrus’ parents before they go, including her father who displays the same odd behavior as before. Once again, she ignores it as a “grown-up behavior” she excitedly answers questions in the car ride home and recounts her experience. Until tomorrow…


	2. Chapter 2

Kodara is a hopeless, barren rock and despite the bubble of optimism that her parents have painstakingly crafted around their meager home, nothing is more powerful than her diligent observation of reality. Not even her father can hide her from the world, and it becomes incredibly apparent when she begins primary academy. This is a mining and industrial colony and the turians who live here breathe it. Whatever these people do during the day is withering, and even at six years of age, she can tell that her parents suffer from it despite hiding it from her.

Her mother and father come home every day exhausted. Lanaai has to retreat to her room to give her parents space and time to rut because they both need immediate relief, and privacy is limited in their tiny apartment. Despite the fact that she knows how much they love her, they are both monsters in the hours following their return to home while they wind down. The transition takes a while. She does not know what they do at work, just that it beaks them and that there seems to be nothing they can do about it; as if this is what reality means.

She hears about holidays and traditions, but they mean little to her because her parents are always gone during the day. Still, they do their best to inform her about them and provide a little extra when they return late in the day cycle. _Annulus_ is celebrated with an extra serving of saccharine _ludin._ Several months later her parents stay awake with her for _Rite_ and eat a special meal in the morning before leaving for work. They join some of the other families for the very sparse Midsummer celebrations. They all look as dejected as she feels.

She begins academy on this spirits-forsaken rock with maybe twelve or thirteen other children of hopeless families like hers. They are all quiet and reserved, including herself, and making friends on the first days seems impossible when they all refuse to speak to one another. They obey the directions of their only teacher and answer when spoken to, but they spend the rest of their time glancing at each other nervously and wondering if a conversation will spontaneously ignite.

“How was your first day, _little star?,_ ” _my little one?_ he father asks when she wanders in for Third, once he and his mate have worked away the day’s stress. He picks her up and holds her at his hip while he sets the table.

_Do tell,_ her mother acts as his other half and completes the process. Lanaai watches for a moment while they perform the task as one individual rather than two, and wonders how it could be possible.

“It was…” _I was scared?_ she does not know how to reply.

“Oh, child,” _come here,_ her father lifts her up to her mother’s opening arms so he can carry the tray with both hands, “the first steps are always scary,” _but so important._

_Have hope,_ “my little one,” her father places the tray, accepts her back from her mother, and holds her gaze with his, “Tomorrow will be better, I promise you,” _because you make it._

Lanaai believes her parents wholeheartedly. They eat and she wonders, only briefly, why her serving is the same size as her parents’. It seems like they should get more because they are larger than she is.

She heeds their words and attempts to bring a spark with her to academy, but oh spirits she already forgot how crushing it seems. She recedes into her comfort zone and pulls out a datapad to start drawing. She likes drawing fantastical landscapes and contemporary architecture, two ideals that represent something boundless. She would rather be in her fantasy world than on this rock.

“I like your drawing,” _very nice,_ Lanaai nearly jumps out of her hide as her focus is torn away from her datapad.

_I think so too,_ comes an echo. She looks up and sees two children, nearly identical, looking down at her curiously.

“Oh, thanks,” _you scared me,_ she cocks her head and regards them.

_Sorry,_ they chorus. They must be brother and sister – everything about them is identical: appearance, markings, scent, even stance.

“I’m Sevus, and this is my sis, Alista” _happy to meet you,_ she accepts their greetings as cordially as she can. She noticed these two sitting next to each other at the other end of the room yesterday, but they were all so terrified that they did not really meet.

“Lanaai,” _happy to meet you too,_ she replies and smiles, delighted to see them smile back, “do you like drawing?” _maybe?_ she asks.

“I’ve never drawn something,” _I don’t know,_ Alista says.

_Me neither,_ “We mostly like to run around and climb rocks,” _it’s challenging, but fun,_ Sevus follows up.

Lanaai is not a very physical person, but she understands that they will strive to overcome challenges in the same way that she does. Everyone has different strengths; she can learn from them and they can learn from her.

“Yeah,” _it’s great,_ Alista continues, “we just found a really good spot. You can see everything!”

_Sounds fun,_ Lanaai says cautiously, “After school, you show me. And I’ll show you how to draw something.”

_Deal!_ the twins nod enthusiastically. Lanaai now has something to look forward to, and the reassuring experience causes her to speak with her other classmates. They begin to form bonds and friendships from here, now that they are willing to share information about themselves. What initially seemed like a vulnerability becomes a budding strength.

* * *

Over the course of the school year Garrus spends a lot of time with Lia. He has not made much of an attempt to make other friends as he greatly prefers the company of few, and her company is objectively far superior to anyone else’s. The other students are acquaintances and he negotiates his way through neutral relationships with them, but Lia is a true friend.

He does perfectly well in school – as well as a six-year-old turian can. He is not quite the peak of his class academically, but he is definitely in the top… and anyway he has other things to think about. His mind is usually elsewhere. School does not prioritize design and creativity quite as much as he would like, despite being a “progressive” academy – whatever in the name of the spirits that means.

Just having Lia around is good-enough to make up for it because she can fill in the gaps opened by the academy. He also knows, but avoids acknowledging, that it would hurt go through school without her. He is naturally awkward and finds talking to people difficult, but Lia can quiet down the voices and white noise that fill his head when he thinks too much.

He is not oblivious, however. Garrus has noticed that his peers like to make passes at his friendship with Lia, which is ironic because they live on a co-habituated colony. The entire point is to make friends with humans and create a stabilized alliance. He has talked to his parents about it and they cannot really do much to fix it because they cannot influence how people think. Their class has already divided itself into turian and human cliques.

“Why do you spend so much time with that human?” _traitor,_ one of his turian classmates asks. It takes Garrus a moment to realize that his opponent is referring to Lia, because he does not think of her as “his human friend.” “Best friend” is more accurate; he cannot even remember the last time he considered her to be a _human,_ because it is _irrelevant._ The offending classmate’s scathing and judgmental tone is quite clear. Garrus chuffs. He should not have to defend himself from this asinine behavior.

“Why do you ask so many stupid questions, Tycus?” Lia’s voice suddenly cuts in. She likes to show up whenever he needs her and jump to his defense. Tycus looks like he is about to punch her.

_Quiet, you animal,_ Garrus can hear Tycus’ soft subharmonic growl, which sounds pathetic coming from his underdeveloped secondary vocal cords. If anything he sounds like a kitten: an adorable furry creature native to Earth. Lia explained it to him once and he could not stop laughing.

Lia has more of a bite than people give her credit for, and though she tries to hide it, sometimes it gets her in trouble. She is indiscriminate as well: peers and superiors are all non-exempt. Garrus has even had the displeasure of occupying the receiving end once or twice when she is in particularly bad mood and he accidentally pushes her.

“Are you calling me stupid, primate?” _you must be!?_

Garrus has to roll his eyes at Tycus’ reaction. He is not the brightest… Lia looks over at him wearing the ghost of an amused expression. Tycus is a big fan of disliking humans, which on Bridge is equivalent to disliking the air. Garrus thinks it has something to do with his family, but he is not entirely sure. Tycus tries to get them to react to rude behavior in some odd attempt to entertain himself, but all it has accomplished so far is exposing how unintelligent and spoiled he is. Garrus is not sure why Tycus’ family is even here, because they all seem to dislike non-turians.

“I’m just asking you a question. I heard you asked a question so I asked one back. It’s fair. Or _have you no honor?_ ” she enunciates. Garrus can feel his mandibles clamp down to his jaw to stop himself from laughing.

Tycus backs off once he realizes that is being verbally outmaneuvered, and that makes him extremely uncomfortable. His physical threats do not work on either of them, which is the only card he has to play in his little dominance game. He cannot just tattle about it either because the teacher would never believe him and he would rather be caught dead than admit defeat to a “filthy human.”

* * *

Lia makes very few friends. She lies right in the neutral ground of “people know about her” and “they think she is harmless.” She does not do well in most subjective studies like reading, writing, and history, but she is at the top of her class in science and mathematics.

She still has an inextinguishable spark of creativity that she dedicates to her dream of becoming an engineer or a starship designer. It has gained her some unwanted attention from both classmates who have pushed away for being different, and her teachers who have singled her out for being different. Her teachers appreciate that she is smart, but they do not like having to accommodate her oblong skill set.

She wishes she could be as well-rounded as Garrus is, because he is good at everything. Reading and writing: no problem. Math and science: no problem. Oration and public speaking: absolutely no problem. He has already helped her learn so much more when they study together after school.

Lia has been teased a couple of times for being close to Garrus. The kids who do it are the same ones every time and they always hope to garner some kind of juicy reaction. She wants to do it – she wants to yell at them to shut up about it, but she refuses to give them what they want. She is well aware that most of them have their own issues – either at home, academically, or with other people.

The less-involved she can be with them the better for her, and ultimately for Garrus. The “problem” actually manifests into a real threat when one of her teachers pulls her aside and asks her to try to spend more time with her classmates. Lia tries to act like the request does not bother her, but she fails to quash it. Her irritation, which stems more from the fear that she does not understand herself, gets the better of her. She speaks a little too honestly with her teacher about how she feels.

“But I just… I just don’t _like_ them, Mr. Tekran. They aren’t interesting.”

“Lia…” her teacher chastises her, “you need to work on keeping those negative thoughts to yourself-”

“But why?” she interrupts him unintentionally. She is genuinely curious about this and cannot understand why everyone has to keep all the negativity inside them. How else are her peers supposed to know what she thinks of them if she can never speak her mind? Mr. Tekran is both smart and interesting so surely he must have the answer. He is also a teacher so she trusts that he will address her lack of knowledge with grace, and help her learn something.

“Don’t interrupt me,” though he speaks softly, the force behind his command is palpable, “A warning now, but the next time you say something like that I’m going to call your parents.”

_No, anything but that_. Lia looks away in shame. Her deepest fear is disappointing people who care about her. The people who care about her are the ones who give her life meaning, and if she loses their trust and their respect, then her life loses its value.

“I’m sorry Mr. Tekran. I’ll try,” she makes a false promise she knows she cannot keep, but she has to pacify the elder or risk losing everything.

It looks like even he cannot explain his own rules. How is she supposed to follow the rules if they cannot be explained by their creator, and materialize whenever it becomes convenient? Lia starts wondering how much her teacher actually knows.

“Please, Lia. I am just trying to look out for your best interests. I want you to be your best self. If your classmates are bothering you, you need to tell me first and I’ll see what I can do to help,” he pats her on the shoulder and takes his leave. Lia processes what he says and wonders if he is right. She does not want to believe him, but maybe he knows something that she does not. She wonders where Garrus is because she needs to be around him right now. She needs to talk to him to feel better.

* * *

Garrus’ family, meaning his parents and his sister, and Lia’s family become very familiar with each other as a result of his friendship with Lia. He pieces together information about her parents from their conversations and other evidence in their household. They are always willing to share stories about themselves with him as well, which helps to draw him in and make their relationship much more personal. Her father does seem to have some kind of connection to his own, but he never questions it because they never talk about it.

Her father, Marek, is a retired software engineer who founded what would become a massive infosec company and then sold it about the time Lia was born. He is extremely pragmatic and enjoys discussing science and math. He is a renaissance man – technically skilled in carpentry, plumbing, computer science, electrical engineering, art, and music. He plays bass guitar and has enjoys human classic “rock” and “progressive metal” from a century long past as well as some of the turian classic era “ _rise_ ”. Marek’s nonsense detector is extremely powerful, but he lets a lot of things slide… for Lia.

Lia’s mother, Jess, is an active biomedical researcher. She works on the neuroscience behind prosthetic limbs and how to better integrate them with biological systems. The Shepard family is on Bridge because of Jess’ job. Jess is a strong woman with all of the answers, and she has a compulsive need to make himself and Lia feel comfortable and accommodated at all times.

Sometimes Lia confides in him that she wishes her mother could be around more often, and Garrus can easily validate the reason for this confession: She is absent most days, even when he stays over.

Lia’s parents become extremely accustomed to him and his presence in their household. They know all of his preferences: what foods he prefers, what music he likes, what he wants to do with his life, what his favorite shows are, what he is afraid of, etc… They treat him like he is their son. Neither seem to care or even notice that he is a turian.

Garrus’ family is very much the same, and he can see it reflected their body language when she is around. As a result, Lia is starting to become a role model for Solana because the two of them have a great deal in common. Solana already looks up to his best friend for advice.

This familiarity progresses to the point where they can float between each other’s households at will and without question. This extends to celebrations as well; the Shepard family is present for their observation of Palaven’s major holidays _Annulus_ and the _Rite,_ and several holidays observed in the North and several from the Likrin Peninsula. Similarly, the Vakarians find themselves at the diner table for various “human” holidays like New Year’s and Midsummer’s. It even starts to make a difference when his parents are tied up with their endless obligations.

Garrus and his sister often spend the night over at the Shepard residence because both of his parents are exceptionally busy and they trust Marek more than a hired observant. Marek always has something for them to do. Sometimes they build model starships using his collection of power tools in the garage, or work on mind-bending logic puzzles or learn some practical skill like how to replace a cracked tile, or how to patch up holes in the wall cladding, or how to fix electronics with a multi-meter and soldering iron… Anything he can think of.

Garrus adores how Marek treats him like an equal, despite the difference in age. The responsibility Marek awards to him, Lia, and even Solana, gives all of them confidence and experience that school seems to be afraid of.

Lia’s father reads them science fiction novels as bedtime stories, selecting from both the classics and recently-published works. It fills his head with all sorts of imaginations and ideas of what could be possible. More recently Marek improvises stories with the central characters: Captain Red and Commander Blue.

Captain Red is a fearless woman who presides over the starship _Nova I_ , and leads her crew as they face daunting odds. Red is afraid of no one and keeps a level head in even the tensest situations, managing to find a way out at the last minute. Red is brash, however, and desires to attack problems before fully considering the evidence. This is where Commander Blue comes in to balance her out.

Commander Blue is Red’s right hand man. He has a smart mouth and a sense of humor, but his tech skills and his quick thinking pair with Red’s character to make them an unstoppable force. He can turn seemingly nothing into useful tools for the aforementioned tense situations. He is detail-oriented and often loses sight of the big picture. Without Red he can easily lose himself in minutia. These characters are his heroes. Marek involves all of them in the creation of these adventures, asking how they should proceed and what their new missions should be.

* * *

Lia spends an enormous amount of time in Garrus’ family’s villa. She learns more about what they do and where they came from. Garrus’ mother, Avita, is a twitchy savant starship engineer quietly responsible for some of the most significant breakthroughs in FTL and field theory in the last three decades. A lot of her work is secret.

But she is so happy and so caring she almost seems _human_. She easily becomes a second mother. Avita treats her like she is part of the family and goes to great lengths to make sure she is properly taken care of. When Lia’s mother is busy, which is incredibly often, Avita will pick her up from school, prepare her dinner, help her study, and entertain her with stories from her childhood and what little work she is allowed to share.

Garrus’ father is very reserved about his work and she learns not to pry after he firmly tells her that he cannot speak about it. He does, however, talk about his time as a diplomat. Castis is a linguist and a master of details. He is well-spoken beyond all reason and enjoys classical works of literature from all species. Lia is able to extrapolate, based on his other stories and just the way he observes the world, that he is a master tactician and strategist. She infers that Castis is probably a well-decorated military figure based on a single, super-fancy, ornately-engraved rifle hanging on the wall. He keeps very little other records of his past around.

Currently Castis works on Bridge as a “government official” and a “diplomat” in a “management role,” none of which he speaks about at length. Lia figures that his work must be very important, and withholding details is something that adults do when they have a certain level of responsibility. Her father has similar reservations discussing his former company. When Castis does make it back to their house, usually on his rest cycles, he always makes the best food ever – aside from her dad, of course.

The initial shock of his imposing stature and stoicism quickly wears off as she realizes he is actually very friendly and cares deeply about his family and his friends. He just does not have a good way of physically showing it. It is because of his patience and kindness, however, that she has begun to learn the _Praexus_ common dialect. It helps that Garrus is willing to help sharpen her skills by talking with her in his native tongue whenever possible. There is just something scary to her about relying on a translator to cover her ability to communicate with him. Although, Garrus is fluent in English so she would never have to worry about that.

She wants to give back to him – it is only fair. Castis has confirmed her worries about translators on a few occasions, citing their latency as major unsolvable flaw in the nature of how they process language. It is why anyone who wishes to travel about Citadel space must pass a basic aptitude test in _standard_. She knows they will being teaching it in school soon.

Lia grows comfortable around Garrus’ family, spending practically half her time over at his house. She has even slept over there a couple of times after Garrus or even Castis helps her with her reading and writing homework, and it becomes too dark outside to walk home. She quickly develops a preference for turian nests over human beds for their incredible comfort and the relief they provide by allowing her release the tension in her back. Her parents have her bed at home replaced shortly thereafter.

Their families also do activities together regularly – on some weekends they go to a local makerspace or to a nearby park to run around. Occasionally they go to the walls for climbing. It really takes a burden off the adults because they are mostly occupied. Having four parental figures to take care of three children greatly simplifies things.

She also begins to conceptualize the major differences between turian and human families, and it begins to shape her view of the world and of Garrus. Sparring is one such alien concept: more of a dance than a fight, but it is part of their daily routine in the same way that brushing her teeth is in her own routine. The Vakarian house has a room dedicated to sparring and they must have at least half an hour before Second, or “spar and Second” as they usually refer to it, so that they can train. Academy has one as well, but humans are not allowed in there. Either way, she does not partake because she is afraid, but she watches in utter fascination.

She is exposed once more to just how alien they are when they prepare and when they dance. The four Vakarians gather on the mats wearing thin compression suits padded at the waist. Lia holds onto Solana while Garrus receives brief instruction from his parents. Then he joins her at the side of the mats to watch while the elder Vakarians whip around faster than her eyes can follow. They are _aliens._ She is scared.

“Normally we don’t wear all this,” he muses the first time she witnesses the violent dance.

“What?” she whisper-yells at him, attempting to keep her voice quiet-enough so his parents will not hear her.

“Yeah normally we just have on waist wraps,” he trills, “ _Ma_ and _pa_ said something about being… ‘culturally considerate,’ whatever that means…”

She does not know what that means either, and she cannot quite visualize what he is talking about.

The monsters on the mats bow to each other and approach them. She cowers, but in an instant they are her parents once more. Then they eat. Simple.

Garrus’ parents are constantly busy. Lia’s mother is busy. Only her father is around all the time because he is retired. Garrus and his sister, Solana, often stay over when his parents cannot be home that night. Her father’s infinite imagination and experience with – quite literally – all things creates the perfect home for them.

* * *

The time has come.

His family is part of the Vakarian clan, and a member of the Varai descendant line which is one of the oldest and “purest” bloodlines. Garrus feels privileged and honored to be a part of the bloodline without possessing the vocabulary to explain why.

In the Varai line they traditionally receive their markings at age seven. Garrus only finds it fitting that his best friend be there when he receives his clan and line markings, and the first chapter of his _seravim_. By extension Lia’s parents are also invited.

His family discusses it with him because it is quite unorthodox for anyone outside immediate family to attend. It is even more unorthodox for non-turians to attend such a deeply-honored and deeply-turian tradition. His mother, of course, argues that it should be allowed. His father wants to disagree, but he knows that this is a valuable cultural exchange and they are only adding three people. The Shepards are all very respectable.

It does not help that his parents have refused to tell him anything about it in accordance to tradition. The extranet does not have a lot of useful information either, due to the guarded and also quite varied nature of the process. Most clans no longer even practice permanent marking, but those that do have different etching procedures to inscribe them.

He is even more nervous because Lia is going to be there to see whatever happens to him, and he does not want to embarrass himself in front of her. He is at peace with the notion of losing composure in front of his sister or his parents, but he cannot fathom the idea of losing composure in front of Lia. He cannot wrap his head around why he feels this way.

The anticipation of this event weighs in on him and Lia does not exactly help. In the days leading up to his marking ceremony she starts looking into all kinds of anecdotes and accounts from other turians about the process. Some say it is intensely painful and others say they were incapacitated for weeks. Others mention that they had to endure multiple inscriptions to properly inlay their markings.

He understands that he should not be afraid, but the concept is so grand and grave. He is on the verge of gaining his _identity_ , his honor, and his legitimacy as a proper Vakarian clan member. The more he thinks about how important this is, the more it stresses him out.

When the sun finally breaks into the sky on the day of his marking ceremony he is greeted by the scent of his favorite First meal wafting in from the kitchen. He scrambles out of his nest and into this clothing. He chirps in surprise when he finds himself face-to-face with his best friend and partner in all things. Lia smiles at him.

“Good morning sleepyhead!” she sings, “we’ve got eggs, and bacon, and l- l’o… l’ok’r” her brow furrows. Castis’ head swivels around from his post at the cooking ranges.

" _L’okryik"_ he mutters encouragingly.

“L’okry-yik” she ekes out finally.

_I’m proud of you,_ both he and his father purr in response. Hearing her best effort warms Garrus’ heart. She is the only human he has met his age who has made an effort to speak to him without using a translator, relying on his knowledge of English, or speaking standard.

L’okryik is a wonderful flaky pastry with sweet ground meat on the inside and definitely one of his all-time favorites. His father is like a magician with the ingredients. He only gets to have this on special occasions because the ingredients are very expensive.

“Good morning Garrus,” _my son, my pride,_ his father half-growls and half-purrs in only the way that his father can, “Are you excited for your big day?”

“I’m nervous,” _anxious all period, all month_ Garrus replies honestly.

“I remember the feeling perfectly,” _I was scared,_ his father rumbles back, “but just think about how nervous your mother and I are, and know that you will not be nervous alone.”

Garrus had not thought about it that way but it makes sense. His parents obviously cannot just practice this procedure every day, which means they have to get it right the first time. This event is just as important for his parents as it is for him. He is their greatest achievement, aside from his beloved sister of course, and this is an important milestone for them as mates.

The Vakarian clan is one of the few remaining clans that upholds permanent marking techniques. Many other clans have transitioned to applying temporary inks which require a touch up every month or so. After the unification wars, more clans began to mix which meant markings had to shift more frequently. Stripping off permanent markings is intensely painful and potentially dangerous, so temporary markings can do until bonding.

But they are also a bit “confident” in the Vakarian clan that their children will never give up their markings. The clan has a high tier already, and its members usually achieve much higher in their lives. When they bond, it is extremely rare that their partner out-ranks them. And even when their partner does possess the tier advantage, they frequently chose the Vakarian name for its reputation.

They direct the group into a quiet room of their house and Garrus’ father brings forth the supplies: A pair of steel-wire brushes and some jars. Garrus spots the signature Vakarian cobalt, but he also spots a container filled with a deep red liquid and another with a clear liquid. The room is completely quiet because nothing needs to be explained at this point. His mother and father each take a brush and dip them first in the reddish liquid.

They paint across his cheeks, nose, and mandibles, slowly, deliberately, and carefully. He can hear them warble softly to each other in their _bonded language_ to confirm their progress. It stings and he can feel the enamel on his facial plates fizz, but he does not flinch. He focuses on Lia instead, watching her intense concentration. It pleases him to imagine what she would look like with Vakarian markings on her face as well.

His parents then clean the brushes in a clear chemical bath – red and blue swirling together in the thinning solution in wispy clouds. He does not falter, recognizing that whatever they have done has stripped off the thick, natural enamel on his plates down to the blood vessels. They drip the brushes in the Vakarian Blue and paint on his markings. This process is much faster, but it hurts no less than before and the sudden shock from the cold pigment is enough to make him clench his fists until it hurts there instead.

They seem to settle into the process as they continue onto the first chapter of his _seravim._ He raises his left arm so they can craft the intricate band of markings that encode information about his lineage from both his mother’s and his father’s side, all within the geometric Varai styling. He knows this is the first of many chapters, if his parents’ veritable sleeves and maps of markings is anything to go by.

Finally they move away.

_Overwhelmed,_ “Welcome to Clan Vakarian, Garrus, descendant of the Varai bloodline,” _may our spirits lift yours_ , his father quietly proclaims. He has never heard this much emotion in his father’s voice, and his subharmonics are thick with pride.

His mother bumps her forehead into his and he finally blushes with embarrassment.

Lia beams. He wants to smile back but his entire face is sore. Lia’s parents are also smiling. Marek puts his hand on Garrus’ shoulder and congratulates him. Jess turns to Avita and thanks her again for allowing their family to share in this moment. Now he will be out of commission for a week while his plates heal. Lia does not allow him to rest, however, and they push forward with their yearly starship. He is deeply grateful for her company.

* * *

Lia has fewer struggles in school the over the next two years as a result of Garrus’ dedicated assistance and stoic patience. He has a way of breaking down complex concepts into terms she can understand and later apply. He also does not pull punches with critiques, and she has learned the hard way not to feel angry when he calls out both the obvious and minute errors in her work. She is a better person because of his endless efforts to propel her forward. He does not have to help her, but he does anyway. Lia cannot imagine how difficult it would be without him.

She does feel inadequate when comparing herself to him, but she cannot help it. There is not a single thing that she can do better than Garrus, and the only reason he does not have a higher grade in mathematics than she does is because he does not try very hard in school. Ironically, math is his strength. He can perform all the calculations in his head in mere seconds so he rarely shows his work as requested; the teachers hate that. Correct answers mean little if he cannot explain how he reached them, so he looses points. He takes the hit because he finds it simpler to finish quickly than to coat the page with unnecessary glyphs. But he has other things on his mind all the time.

Lia is shocked when he asks her to attend his marking ceremony. Ordinarily she would say no to ceremonies, but this is important for him and his identity. It is also important to her because she wants to be there for him when he is anxious or stressed out. She has to be a better friend because he does so much for her already.

She agrees to do it without giving it a second thought. Her parents agree as well after some deliberation. They all know that this is unusual and extremely important to the Vakarian family, so they all take the invitation very seriously.

They wake up just moments before the sun rises on the day of his ceremony and head to the Vakarian household for breakfast courtesy of Castis. Her mother fusses about what they should wear because Castis did not specify, so they dress up a little: collared shirts and pants for all of them, despite the impending heat of the Bridge “spring” season. By they time they arrive the sun has barely crested the horizon, throwing beams of light across the land and throwing mottled projections across the walls of the Vakarian’s home.

Garrus’ mother greets them at the door and thanks them for coming. By now her parents have become familiar with the turian greeting and accept the gesture as they are welcomed across the threshold. She starts to salivate when the scents from the kitchen make their way to her.

“Why don’t you go help Mr. Vakarian in the kitchen,” her mother says to her.

“Okay!” she nods and runs off while Avita stays behind with her parents to talk to them in the dining area.

“Good morning, Mr. Vakarian,” she does her best to speak his tongue. She feels embarrassed every time she does, but she will never learn if she never practices. He rumbles in amusement at her attempt, but it is endearing. At least he is not cross with her or bothered at her for butchering the words.

“Good morning, little one,” he croons, making sure to emphasize the pronunciation of “good morning” so she can hear it properly. He speaks to her in clear, faintly-accented English for a moment, “thank you for coming. Garrus is very happy that you agreed to attend.”

“I am honored,” she replies in _Praexus_ , “how may I help you, sir?”

“Check your use of the formal verbiage,” he rumbles, “we’re all family here. Grab the paper bag of _okri_ from the fridge please, _honored madam_ ,” he purrs and chuckles. He is only poking fun at her. Lia brings over the bag of sweet, heavily-seasoned ground meat. She knows this is one of Garrus’ favorites, but they do not have it often because it is challenging and expensive to order the ingredients to Bridge. She enjoyed it immensely when she first tried at their gathering for _Annulus._

Garrus finally wanders into the room and immediately she smiles.

“Good morning sleepyhead!” she greets him. She offers him their current selection of breakfast items and struggles with the pronunciation of the turian dish, much to her embarrassment. Emulating the clicking sound at the end of the ‘L’ stop is challenging and she does not quite have it mastered. The other problem is that she cannot remember the full word for it. But Castis helps her.

After they eat together, a very dejected Solana is sent off to her room to wait while the rest of them pile into a quiet room to begin.

Wow… all three of them are completely naked. She tries not to stare, but she has never seen such a thing before. They have never appeared more alien to her than in this moment, and she almost forgets who they are. Their interlocking plates, which smoothly glide over one another when they move, are surprisingly captivating. Both of his parents appear to be quite muscle-bound as any surface not covered by plates show signs of sculpted musculature that ripple with every movement. None of the trio seem to notice or care that they are not wearing anything, as if this is entirely acceptable.

As if their lack of clothing was not enough, Garrus’ parents are both covered with markings down their arms, across their chests, and their backs. His father has additional markings down his legs to his ankles. She has never had the chance to see these because they always wear compression suits at the very least. Her eyes go wide as she anticipates that Garrus will be receiving a similar treatment; they might be here for a while if so.

“See Jay, this is why they didn’t specify what to wear,” she hears her father whisper to her mother, who snorts and covers her mouth with one hand while slapping him on the shoulder with the other. The two older Vakarians glance over and flick their mandibles in amusement, still without any sign that they care about how naked they are. Garrus seems to be off in his own world right now.

It takes her a moment to adjust to their nudity after blushing furiously at the sight of her friend so exposed. She entertains the idea of removing all of her clothing as well just so he does not have to feel so vulnerable. She has never quite considered turians to be different from humans until now because she is treated so normally by his family, but directly witnessing the difference in cultural norms makes her keenly aware of just how alien they are.

Their lack of discomfort or embarrassment quickly slips off onto her and she begins to acclimatize. They have plates; they are not vulnerable. It allows her to return to focusing on other aspects of this ceremony. She is here to support Garrus, and she refuses to be side-tracked by the sight of him without any clothing. Lia watches carefully as his parents execute the process without uttering a word. The chemicals are pungent and powerful, and leave behind a stinging sensation in her nostrils.

When his parents finish painting on the red liquid and pull away to wash their brushes, her eyes go wide. Garrus’ plates are literally bubbling on his face under the stripping agent. She winces a bit, imagining that he must be in quite a great deal of pain. He does not show it though, and his gaze is fixed intently on her. She holds eye contact, willing away whatever agony he might be feeling. After cleaning off the soggy enamel his parents begin with the cobalt. They work very slowly and carefully, going over their lines multiple times with the brushes to ensure and even and vibrant coating.

They make much quicker work of the band of markings that encircle his left arm, buzzing to each other occasionally. Garrus mandibles flutter, but, to her relief, he does not appear to be in any pain. He is just as transfixed as she is watching the two artists expertly shape the inscription around his tiny bicep. Finally his parents drop their brushes into the solvent and step back, inspecting their work and purring with satisfaction.

Suddenly there he is: Garrus _Vakarian_. He has transformed into a formally-marked, proper turian _man_. He is larger than she is, than her parents even, despite knowing that he is physically shorter than she is. She half-wishes she were turian so she would know what this feeling is like, but knows such a thing is a pipe dream. All she can do is smile awkwardly in silent congratulations for her best friend. His markings make him look like his parents – he looks like an adult.

Lia is a little upset when Garrus’ parents remind her that he will need lots of rest over the course of the next week in order to allow his plates to heal and lower the risk of infection. She still plans to bring the party to him, though. They have made it a tradition between them to design a new starship every year and they are not going to skimp out because his face or his arm hurts. This year they even plan on building a small model. She looks forward to another great year by his side.


	3. Chapter 3

The Ivelus family moves off-world at the end of the year, terminating her relationship with Sevus and Alista. She has to hide herself in her room and keen in private because she does not want anyone to see her weakness, least of all her parents, because they certainly have enough to worry about. There is little forewarning – one day the dejected-looking pair approaches her to say goodbye, barely giving her time to process what it means. They are gone the _next day._ The teacher has some vague idea of their departure, but only enough to know not to be worried about the absence of the two children. They could be dead for all she cares; she has no way to contact them and no way to know where to look if she ever wants to see them again.

At least her home is still safe. Eventually she has to find her father and weep in his arms, after failing to brave this tragedy alone. The twins were her only _real_ friends here. Despite the small class, she barely speaks to the others despite being on good terms with them. Amicability and friendship are two very separated concepts.

_Calm, hush, you’re safe little star,_ her father purrs to her. Lanaai forces her way into tomorrow because he and her mother give her strength and reassurance.

* * *

They are just starting secondary academy after graduating Academic Tier Six. Garrus’ parents pull him aside to present him with his clan sidearm which he accepts eagerly. He wants to make his parents proud and show them that he has both the patience and responsibility to handle such an important tradition.

“Garrus,” _listen carefully,_ his father growls sternly, “I’m not sure what you have heard or looked up… but on Bridge there are some additional,” _unfortunate,_ Castis rolls the next word around in his head before landing on one, _hmm…._ “requirements… I suppose is the correct word for them.”

“Huh?” _I don’t understand_ , Garrus replies lamely, confused.

“We are in a cohabited-”

“Obvious statement of the year award,” _you big beautiful idiot,_ Avita mutters quietly, jabbing Castis in the side playfully.

_Quiet you,_ he chirps at her in amusement.

“-colony. We had to reach an agreement with our human allies about this tradition. In a few days you will meet with a couple of people who will ask you some questions… and then after another couple of days you will receive a license to carry.”

“Why?” _that’s silly and complicated_ , Garrus asks. He still cannot understand why this is such an involved process when a sidearm is such a necessary and standard accoutrement. How else is he expected to protect his brethren without a proper lethal weapon at his side?

“Because…” _it is silly and complicated,_ Castis starts to hum in thought, as he does when choosing his words carefully, “it makes the humans here feel safer.”

“Spirits, Castis,” _too vague, not helping,_ Avita smacks his pauldron then addresses Garrus, “sweetie, turians have a long history of carrying sidearms as an indication of maturity, responsibility, and readiness to defend their brethren on a moment’s notice - starting at a relatively young age. Humans do not, and in general humans are prone to using lethal force at the even the slightest provocation – their minds are wired in such a way that emotion and logic intertwine much tighter than in ours. It is why their art and music is so beautiful… but also why they can be so dangerous. They have a troubled past with firearms. That’s why.”

Garrus’ jaw drops in shock, _I had no idea!_

“Tactful, Avi,” _you’ve scarred him_ , Castis scowls at her.

“Listen, Cas, he wanted an explanation – I told him the truth,” _try to prove me wrong, aivo._

“I’m sorry I asked?” _I still don’t get it_ , he speaks, unsure, still thinking about what his mother said. How could she possibly be right? Lia and her family seem like the opposite of her description, but then again none of the Shepards are even close to average. Some of the human children at academy have been known to start physical fights over virtually nothing.

Fortunately, the whole registration process is much less painful than he expected it to be, and within a week he has his license and his beautifully-crafted, custom-built Varai-Vakarian clan sidearm.

“Lia check this out!” _I’m excited, I hope you will be_ , he is eager to show her the weapon, proudly emblazoned with the Varai-Vakarian markings.

“What is? You have a… a _gun_?” she asks nervously, eyeballing the pistol held comfortably in his hand.

“Yes?” _spirits_ , she looks quite terrified right now.

“Why?” she asks, looking at him like he might kill someone, “why do you have one?”

So he explains to her why this is important to him, avoiding replaying his mother’s words at all costs. It brings him a warm feeling of relief as she seems to accept the idea.

“Oh… I’ve wondered what that was. All the grown-ups have one. Can we take it apart?” she tries, sounding embarrassed rather than terrified. He will accept it.

“You bet!” _together,_ he chirps happily, “let’s go to my house and I can show you.”

Together, they work through the stripping process, admiring the perfectly-engineered components and electronics. They discuss every last part and postulate over the reasons why they are designed in such a way. She admires nuances like tooling marks and signs of the gunsmith’s hand. He watches her re-assemble the sidearm carefully; her intelligent eyes roam over the components and her nimble fingers bring them into perfect alignment. The spirits soar inside his chest as she successfully returns the final locking pin and completes her task.

“Do you want to fire it?” _I can teach you_ , he knows he should not be asking her, but he desperately wants to see how she handles it. She would probably make a powerful warrior. She looks at the weapon for a long time and then shakes her head.

“No thanks – I think it might hurt my shoulder.”

Garrus does not push her because he can see that she is uncomfortable with the idea.

“Grab some food with me?” _please,_ he tries. She smiles back at him, just as radiant as ever.

“You sure know a way to a girl’s heart, Gare-bear,” she hops from the raised stool and beams at him. He does not really talk about the sidearm after that as it becomes a standard part of his life in the way Lia’s omni-tool is for her.

Later that week his parents send him to see their local scribe to receive another chapter for his _seravim,_ chronicling his responsibility and his duty to protect his brothers and sisters. He senses that inviting Lia along would not be appropriate for something so personal and so… _irrelevant_ to her, especially now that she seems to be distancing herself from him.

Crosse-Vexus has another campus for secondary academy into which they are both accepted. It has been a tense period for her…

He notices; he notices everything.

In the years following Garrus notices that their friendship degrades, and Lia goes through a phase where she behaves oddly – more aggressive and bitter than normal. He starts to become afraid that she might never speak to him again, and so he never pushes his luck trying to talk to her about it. When he thinks back on it now, she did get over it pretty quickly, but he still wonders what plagued her so much that she refused to address or discuss it.

He observes her mind begin to grow up faster than those of her peers, sprouting its leaves well above the surrounding canopy. He goes as far as talking with her parents who quietly suggest to him that she has a bit of an inferiority complex. They do not go into more detail because they do not want to give him information that she would want kept private.

To an extent it causes him to question his trust in her because he cannot understand why she would withhold this strife from him. What about it makes it inappropriate for him to know? Does she not trust that he will always strive to help and protect her?

Garrus plows through his academics instead of needlessly complicating their stagnating relationship, hauling a trail of meaningless numbers behind him. The idea that the academy sees him as a collection of numbers bothers him and drains away his motivation to do well on their behalf. He still struggles to improve for himself, and therefore he must persevere. At home he excels at hand-to-hand training and ranged weapons training with his father and mother. He feels decently confident with himself, but does not allow his budding ego to spill into his relationship with Lia.

Lia comes back around at the end of the year but she seems different to him. He cannot quite put the feeling to words; she is both close to him and yet retreated back from her skin. It is this change that causes him to falter. If the strongest, warmest person he knows can become colder so easily and so quietly, what is stopping anyone else from the same sort of fate? Can he truly trust her word when she says she is happy? Does she even know what happiness is anymore?

Still, they design a starship every year. They look back on their initial drawings from previous years and laugh at how incomplete and childish they were. They are like sunlight, however, because they can bask in the memories of dreaming them up and creating them together. He can bask in the memory of her that it brings to life. They are both improving, and it gains them some attention.

“You’re flipping the wings around?” he asks when he notices the modification she has made to their original idea.

“Why not? No one will expect it, and it’s not like this thing will ever spend time in the air,” she replies, justifying her decision, “also we have to make something about it be super ridiculous otherwise the judges won’t care. We have to… _wow_ them,” she accompanies her statement with an “explosion” gesture.

“Odd tactic,” _novel, though,_ he says and begins to work with her idea, “seems about right.”

“Also here…” she reaches over and drops a giant torus shape right into the center of their plans.

“What in the spirits’ names are you doing?” _you silly creature,_ he asks with amusement.

“Being inspired. A donut, Garrus. They taste amazing – especially those fat ones from Cerenes’ diner. Anyway we are going to win this design challenge, Garrus, and we are going to do it with the most wackiest model they’ve ever seen. The judges are going to see the same coal over and over and then BAM! Diamonds,” she grins and starts reshaping the hull of the model to fit the torus she has plopped in there.

“You’re insane, Lia. But now I’m feeling inspired. Allow me to…” _watch me ruin this_ , he counters her move with his own contribution: a massive, ugly, elongated box shape cutting straight through the one side of the torus.

“You like donuts, I like naxa. This is where I store the naxa.”

“Oh no! Why didn’t I think of that! Now it’s going to dump over from the weight on one side!” she feigns shock, “I didn’t know we were building a freighter. Also make it bigger it needs room for your ego as well,” she casts him an oblong grin with her jab.

“You wound me!” _you jest!_ he gesticulates and exaggerates his tone.

“Imagine the looks on the crew’s faces if they actually made this,” now she is laughing and it is like music to his ears.

“I mean it’s still better than half the garbage out there. This is basically a Volus freight cruiser now. They would be thanking the heavens for this massive flying hair dryer we’ve unleashed upon them… and also the ten million kilograms of delicious naxa. Everything anyone could ask for,” _she’s a beauty_ , Garrus smirks as Lia cackles.

After some _heavy revisions_ , their design ends up winning the junior engineering competition they enter. And, to his endless amusement, it was exactly as Lia had predicted: eleven of the same, boring design and then their fantastic, asymmetric, flying FTL contraption they lovingly named the _Donaxa_. It turns out that her idea to slap a torus in the middle of the craft sparked some intrigue about mass cores of higher genus surface topology.

When they start doing the math and running tests with the help of Garrus’ mother they find out that it is theoretically more efficient to shape a core like that. The only problem is that it would be nearly impossible to scale up and no one knows how to create toroidal mass cores. Avita ends up publishing a paper about it with their names listed in the dedication. He is proud of what they accomplish together.

This is what he wants.

* * *

Lia finds herself in a difficult period between the ages of eight and twelve in which, without much explanation, she begins to resent Garrus for being so inexplicably perfect at everything. She still struggles with subjective studies: most any classic humanity except music and artistic design. Literature and history bring her down consistently because they require so much memorization and prosaic analysis.

When he talks about how his teachers have suspected him of cheating, especially in math, he inadvertently reminds her that she is nothing before the supercomputer brain he quietly cultivates.

“…because I never bring a calculator – the teacher seems to be very upset about that,” he explains over lunch one day.

“Yeah I think if I were the teacher,” Lia replies, “I would suspect a thing or two if one of my students just comes up with the right answers out of thin air.”

“I mean, they don’t come out of thin air though,” he scowls, like this is an issue he takes personally, “I just do the calculation in my head and the answer is correct. It’s not that challenging – it’s just numbers…” he glances up and then looks away, realizing that he may have insulted her.

“…not challenging for me I mean,” he quickly adds.

“Damn, brother,” she takes a bite out of her sandwich, “so how do you do trig and all that irrational stuff?” she says with her mouth full of food.

“Attractive as always, Lia. I use the series expansions and numerical evaluation. It’s just how your calculator does it,” he replies, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation at this point. She thinks he has realized that he is one of the only students around who has this skill, and that feeling of isolation bothers him.

“ _Just,_ huh? Sounds like your teacher should just give it up, then… just jealous of your super-duper math skills. So anyway how is your essay on _Sercian k’via Lios_ , coming along?” she changes the subject for him and his shoulders roll back up to their natural, confident pose.

“Well, the entire book is terrible…” he grins, “so… it’s just two-kay words of ‘bee-ess’ with some flowery vocab to fake-out the prof. What a _not-waste_ of my time,” he flanges his voice to emphasize the sarcasm.

Lia tilts her head back and laughs, and forgets for a moment that he is a god who simply tolerates her. Of course he would find everything about that boring, contrived, and overly-written work of classical turian literature terrible. She completely agrees, and the empathy that she feels for him is what inspires her to laugh. He knows how to say exactly what she wants to hear. He knows how disguise himself as mortal to make her happy.

Garrus never _seems_ to have any academic troubles, even in subjects that lay well outside of his scientific mindset. If he does, then she never finds out about it or he never mentions it. On top of that, he excels physically. He used to be shorter than she by a fair margin, but he has long since grown above and beyond her noodly frame. Turians develop much faster than humans do at this stage of their lives, reaching the first major growth plateau at around fifteen years old – which is why military academy begins for turians at that age.

She knows his mother and father have been training him for combat which makes his strength and speed superhuman – as they should be.

It was always true, but now she _feels it;_ Garrus is not a human. She is not a turian. Why must it be so?

It feels weird to think about, but it is an unfortunate truth that she must accept. It causes her to go through an existential crisis about how she cannot be that way and how it is not fair that he can be that way without her. More than anything, she is afraid that he will just become bored with her and move on once he realizes how _utterly_ inferior she is.

Lia never figures out how to stop herself from having a complex either, so she just chooses to ignore it after becoming accustomed to its presence. She understands how to deal with it and does not let it control her like it used to. However, she will live the rest of her life lying to people about how she feels. She cannot let anyone know that she is unhappy because that would be a burden. She does not want them to worry needlessly about her because it would ultimately waste everyone’s time.

She stays close to Garrus because he understands her the most and he gives her strength that she does not have. She also starts to notice improvements to her academic performance which helps her confidence. She and Garrus keep building their yearly starship models – they even receive a design award in a junior engineer’s competition at the end of the year.

What starts as a joke between herself and Garrus to win this competition by creating the weirdest, most outlandish design possible, ends up causing some ripples in the FTL research community when they accidentally discover how to design a more efficient mass core. They bask in their fifteen seconds of fame and then resume their lives when the discovery quickly goes under the radar.

Lia is just glad that Garrus sticks around and puts up with her. They would never have reached this place if he had not played along with her game and his sense of humor was not tuned to hers. She thinks about it every day. What would it be like without someone like him to give meaning to her life? Her parents are wonderful people, but she feels as if they have an obligation to be proud of her. Garrus has none of those requirements, yet does all of it anyway.

Despite ending the year on a high note, Lia has not had the best overall first year of academy. She manages to improve her grades dramatically in literature which rounds out her scores; but she does not take any pride in it.

She and Garrus are still as close as ever which keeps her crippling depression at bay. In an effort to rectify the problem herself, she starts to attend a martial arts class to increase her self-confidence… and also because she wants Garrus to think she is capable of defending herself. Her humanity trapped her with a permanent deficiency, so she has to do all she can to make up for it. Even the gene mods cannot save her from being a human.

At the very least she wants to be more physically capable. She looks at herself in the mirror and feels disgusted. She finds the minuscule amount of fat on her figure atrocious, and the lack of any clear-cut musculature induces a feeling of enervation. Why is she so _soft?_ She figures that if she can make herself more physically appealing, she might respect herself enough to stop finding her own reflection repulsive. She hopes that if she becomes comfortable with herself then she will find the happiness she wants. At best, Garrus might view her more favorably.

Ironically, it does not quite work out that way. Apparently she has enemies, just because she looks the way she does, because she is constrained by parameters outside her control, and because she has a powerful motivation to be the best. She is aware of the trade-offs that society more or less enforces; they usually do not intersect with her life. However, thirteen and fourteen year old girls seem to want to watch the world burn, starting with her.

She is finally cornered by a posse who start out by calling her names. The comments consist mostly of cheapshit she finds more amusing than inflammatory. The magnitude of their stupidity is genuinely hilarious to her because she can reliably predict everything they are about to say. She knows any reply of hers would be considered a provocation so she says nothing and attempts to move on with her life.

Unfortunately, they find her snickering to be worthy of further molestation. To her own surprise, they strike a nerve when they call her a “ _preem_.” How did they find out? Did they tell anyone? Her life might as well be ruined if people know. It catches her off-guard and she cannot react quickly-enough to stop one of them from just launching a fist directly into her nose.

* * *

“Dad?” _what is that?_ Garrus asks, when he notices it, wondering what exactly it is.

Solana and Avita are out purchasing groceries and running errands for her upcoming academic year, leaving just Garrus and Castis behind to eat Third. Castis pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth, and his lips retract as he returns the fork to the plate.

_Yes, my son?_

_That notch,_ “What is that right there? It’s… none of my friends have that. I don’t have that. My teachers don’t either.”

Castis stares and trills, _what?_

“That…” _right there,_ Garrus reaches out and pokes his father on the mandible, which flutters in response.

_Too perceptive,_ “interesting you should notice that,” he purrs and places the pad of his finger over it.

_I don’t know,_ Garrus responds, “Yeah I don’t know why, but I just see it there. The… other mandible doesn’t have one. It wasn’t there in the picture mom has of you at your graduation from academy,” _a battle? A scar? A story?_

_None of the above,_ “This notch means that I love your mother very much,” _with all my heart,_ he hums, “someday Garrus, you will find a mate and you will love her,” _with all of your heart,_ “and you will have this notch. Turians of our descent notch when we bond, which is why you may not see it on everyone. We don’t really discuss this outside of our family.”

Garrus bows his head and returns to his food, _sorry for interrupting._

His father smiles in reply, _no fault in harmless curiosity._

* * *

Garrus’ current status as a student officer at the academy inspire the delinquents to steer clear of him… mostly because student officers carry loaded and live firearms at all times. He has received elevated authority after testing rigorously and must maintain his position with regular physical and mental evaluations. He went through the trouble because he wants to guarantee this place is safe. For Lia.

Although, it is a little unfair because the position is only offered to the attending turians in the three uppermost academic tiers, depending on performance.

He makes damn sure the chapter detailing this accomplishment mentions her, and makes alterations to his parents’ pre-approved design before the scribe has a chance to read the pattern. The elder says nothing when as he parses through the markings and nods approvingly once he is certain they hold with Varai-Vakarian tradition. Garrus finds infinitely more satisfaction in this small victory than any other merit thus far. Lia deserves to be etched into his plates for the rest of his life.

Garrus has never had issues with harassment. He has his mother’s murder-glare and his father’s stoicism, a combination which makes almost everyone terrified of what his bad side might be like. Students occasionally make passes at his friendship with Lia, indirectly calling him a xenophile using euphemisms and innuendos, but that usually passes rather quickly when he shows no reaction to it.

Lia on the other hand… he catches some other human females picking on her in a group. She seems to be holding her own and refusing to rise to fight, awkwardly smiling as she often does when she predicts something and then it occurs exactly as she expects. But then one of them punches her – his Lia – right in the face, breaking her nose. _His Lia_.

“Not so funny now, huh _preem?_ ” he hears the rather heavy-handed insult slung after her, as Lia staggers back and her eyes water reflexively, “aw… are you gonna cry about it? Those perfect _fake_ genetics don’t mean shit!”

Garrus’ patience never wavers when people make passes at him, but seeing her take a hit makes him so unreasonably angry that he cannot stop himself. At twelve years old, he much taller than most humans of sixteen or older.

He barges into the group, tears the assailant away from Lia before she can issue another strike, and slams her to the ground, effortlessly knocking the wind from her lungs. He puts himself between the group and Lia, who now has her hands covering her face.

“What the hell?” one of them screams at him.

_Be glad you’re still breathing,_ he growls in response. He makes a concentrated effort to reel in his subharmonics because the recorded evidence form his visor will be reviewed. When he smells Lia’s blood and sees it drip between her fingers, it takes every gram of strength in his muscles and every shred of restraint in his mind not to obliterate the scum-suckers who instigated this.

He retrieves gauze and medigel from one of the compartments on his armor and gently presses it against Lia’s nose. She hisses in pain and he coos automatically to assuage her.

“Assault on a fellow student, that’ll look amazing on your record,” _demon,_ he glares at the female who addressed him. He notices the bruises that the makeup does a poor job covering up. The infrared spectrum of his eyesight clearly identifies the damage to her skin: the welts and the broken blood vessels. She is abused at home. He also recognizes her as one of the students the teacher regularly calls down to “talk to” – she is failing academically.

“It isn’t like you will need that record, you probably won’t make it to university. Maybe if your parents stop beating you…” _but probably not_ , she looks shocked, on the verge of tears. Now the others look worried.

“I know you all have problems but there is just no chance you can cry your way out of this one,” _seems to be all you can do, anyway_ , he knows speaking like this will earn him a reprimand, but he is beyond furious. He can hardly think straight.

“She’s a _preem_ , she’s not even a real person. Why do you care skullface? Do you wanna fuck her?” he barely hears the reply, and he really cannot care less at this point.

He is slowly backing Lia out of the group. He wants that guard nearby to hurry it up so he can take her to the medic. He does not want to turn his back on the group in case they decide it would be “smart” to engage in more violent behavior.

_Truly amazing,_ “What a ridiculous question. Really showing off your amazing tact and command over the English language. I didn’t know they allowed-” he begins.

“Get lost skullface!” another has the gall to attempt a verbal takedown, “take your stupid bitch with you!” This girl with the colorful language has the faintest tint of green running down her throat indicating damage from hallex inhalation. It is extremely corrosive and she is still young – if she continues her throat will dissolve and she will die a horrible, slow, painful death in no more than two weeks. Bridge has long-since lost its innocence as he sees more and more examples of abuse, predominantly in humans. Something about the system here seems to make it so easy.

“Is that the best you can do?” _probably is,_ he drawls as he watches the security guard approach them, “I guess it probably is. With that recent addiction to hallex, pretty soon you won’t be able to do anything at all,” _how does that feel?_

Garrus keeps the entire group in the lens of his visor and records everything. He places his steps thoughtfully and keeps his body language as aggressive as possible, but keeps them in frame. He even caught the punch on camera, so there is no possible way these students can avoid punishment and there is no way they can twist the truth to wriggle their way out of the consequences. Justice will be administered.

The security guard finally approaches them and escorts the group away to be dealt with. Garrus personally accompanies Lia to the school’s medic.

“Broken nose,” _pity,_ the older turian woman titters, “I will set it,” _quick and painless._

The weak little punch had not actually broken it badly enough to cause permanent problems, luckily. The turian doctor makes short work of anesthetizing and straightening, and then interrogates Lia about what happened so she can write a proper report and have it sent to the disciplinary committee as evidence. Before dismissing them, the doctor casts a single, concerned glance towards him before she breaks eye contact and returns to her workstation.

_Watch yourself, young one_.

Garrus is eventually summoned before the disciplinary board to present his side of the story. He has a reputation and some degree of immunity here from a spotless record as a student officer, but he defends himself and Lia with rigor. He brings up the recordings and shows them just how clearly the events condemn the suspects. There is some reaction to the things he says, which he did not omit.

“Garrus you need to watch your mouth. You could face action for speaking that way,” _but you won’t_ , one of the committee says. The ire bubbles and froths under his plates. Is this justice? Just some ad hominem remark and completely ignoring the entire situation?

“Permission to speak freely,” _give me permission, sir_ he grits out. The teacher who called him out pauses, but another one grants him permission.

“A student is assaulted for no reason, and you’re worried about what _I_ said? Shouldn’t you be more worried about the student with the broken nose, or the student who tries to cover up bruises from abuse with makeup, or the student who has a hallex addiction? Or the one who smells like alcohol because either she or her parents cannot stop drinking? Or perhaps that these individuals made extremely prejudicial remarks regarding the victim which may ruin her academic career anyway? Or the reputation of our academy? My peers need help. My words against them are merely petty insults; a tactic to stall them.”

There is a long silence before they dismiss him. He never hears about this issue again. He also never hears from or sees any one of those girls who attacked _his Lia_. Likewise, he does not care where they went or what happened to them because they do not deserve any more attention of his. His image of Bridge continues to decay with this event.

* * *

Lia is not exactly shocked into submission by pain. It hurts, of course, but adrenaline pumps her into painless sobriety. She can tell just from the amount of blood coming from her nose that it has probably been tweaked. Garrus, however, surprises her by showing up out of nowhere and slamming the assailant into the ground with enough force to knock the wind from her lungs.

What actually shocks her is how they found out she is a… a _preem_.

“Premium genetics.” If that information gets out then it could ruin the fragile standing she has with her very few friends. Of course, she can always deny the rumors, but nothing stops the mill from turning once it starts.

They are human thirteen and fourteen year-olds, so they are no match for Garrus’ turian strength. His stature resembles a sixteen or seventeen year-old human male and he can easily lift three times his body weight. He will only get stronger; more of an alien to her. He steps in front of her and begins to use his sharp tongue to tear them apart with a horrifyingly tranquil-sounding tone that clearly indicates the edge of fury. She has never seen him act this way, and she did not even know he was capable of this.

A security guard approaches the group and talks with Garrus for a moment before taking the group away with a second guard. They are shouting some nonsense about how it is not fair and that he accosted them. Garrus ignores them and takes her to the doctor, purring softly as he holds her to his side. Lia hardly notices when the doctor sets her nose.

Lia is irritated that this is happening in the first place, especially now that she probably has an even higher bounty on her head. She is disappointed that Garrus had to step in like that because it means he has just placed a target on his head. If she was an alien among her peers before, then she must be somewhere beyond the traverse now. This is why she hates humans.

She would just rather have taken the punch and ran to the security guard herself; it would have been easy because she was not actually cornered. It had already been enough of a lose-lose situation as it was. She needs to step up her self-confidence if she wants to take control of her life to stop any repeats of this. She is not going to hear the end of this from her parents, Garrus’ parents, and worst of all, Garrus.

The dean of students talks to her about the event briefly and she does her best to preemptively defend Garrus from any kind of admonishment. She does not know how his talks go, however, because he never mentions the event afterwards. Her life resumes without the retaliation that she anticipates, and she grows increasingly upset as time passes. The rumor mill, to her endless apprehension and anxiety, remains dormant. She has very few friends and does not talk to people in general – now, as the “weird kid,” it is simply easier to have fewer friends and talk to even fewer people.

It works in her favor because Lia exchanges the time she would normally spend around Garrus with studying, training, and exercising. _Distractions._ She maintains her grades as she continues to play the keyboard and design starships, using music, art, and her side projects as escapes from what others might call “depression.”

Her perseverance to improve her fluency in _Praexus_ pays off, and she feels herself beginning to think using the language itself, rather than making an effort to translate in her head. Ironically, her entire motivation to learn the language in the first place was so she could always understand and communicate with Garrus.

Now she hardly does either.

The physical focus and routine improve her performance in school, so naturally she devotes more time to it as higher numbers mean more to her than her relationships. She notices a significant improvement in her grades as she becomes physically stronger. When she looks at herself in the mirror she is less disgusted with how she looks as her body fat hits all-time lows and her muscles start to show. Little things still bother her: like how her nose seems to be just slightly off vertical, or how the transition from her chin to her bottom lip is too sharp, or how stupid she looks when she smiles.

Generally she eats less. She talks less and laughs less. She is less of the person that made friends with Garrus seven years prior. All of these sacrifices make her stronger in what she considers to be “worthwhile” areas. If she can reach perfection – physically strong, attractive, and intelligent – maybe someone will want her and she will not have to be alone. Because that is what they want, her personality be damned. Her personality is trash anyway.

She always puts forth the effort to go watch all Garrus’ recitals and op-ball games. He is a virtuoso with his hybrid guitar and it is always a joy to hear him play anything from covers to original compositions. It lifts her entire sense of being to see him own the instrument and make it sing to his audience. It begins to hurt when he begins to bring his own vocals into his performances. Two-part harmonies with himself with the same rich, rolling timbre that defines it. Perfectly-tuned and always on pitch. What spirit sent him here?

The Crosse-Vexus op-ball team is also one of the best-trained and highly-regarded of all turian junior teams, even beating out those from Palaven. And, though he is not the star of their ob-ball team, he is integral to its performance and can pull off tactical plays that no one suspects. He usually ends up winning their games with precise, calculated unpredictability. It does not give her the same sense of satisfaction to watch him play the sport because it reminds her too often of how different he is from her, but she does enjoy it nonetheless. The enjoyment is for him more than it is for herself. It seems there is no conceivable task which Garrus cannot do with the precision and grace of a master.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am incredibly grateful to those of you who took time to leave a comment!
> 
> "alien biology" and "alien culture" abound.

After her encounter with the hostile females, Garrus sees Lia change immediately. In the months that follow she becomes much more closed-off and reluctant to talk about herself. She distances herself from him and her handful of other acquaintances. She spends considerably less time over at his house to the point where his family takes notice. Two of their mutual friends and even Solana even ask him about it. He cannot figure out what is wrong no matter how hard he looks into it, and that loss of control over a situation unfolding so close to his heart quickly becomes one of his most profound fears.

Lia is the one person who he cannot crack. It is almost like she knows what he is capable of seeing and builds her defenses accordingly. Garrus notices how she spends a lot more time at the school gym than she did before, likely as a reaction to feeling defenseless and weak. He almost cries when her parents contact him about her, wondering if anything is wrong and perhaps, if he knows something they do not. _Her own parents._

He does not know what to do; he does not know how to tell them that she is drifting away into space, half the girl she was, and that he cannot figure out why or that he does not know he can fix the problem.

Garrus struggles to maintain his friendship with her. What used to be a give-and-receive relationship is now give-only. She never asks him, or anyone for that matter, if he wants to go do things anymore. No more offers to meet up at the walls or assemble a new starship model or throw the disc around or join her for weekend lunch at Cerenes’ diner. She exclusively waits for people to ask her to do something before either denying them outright or tentatively agreeing and then denying them later.

To her credit, she never stands him up when she agrees to participate in an activity, but the frequency with which she vetoes plans is much higher than it ever was. He wonders if it is something that he did to cause this. It starts to hurt him to think about.

Otherwise she has other things going on that she spends all her time on. It is a precious commodity that no one can afford to waste – not even Lia herself. It makes him paranoid that he will just irritate her if he tries to convince her to spend time with him.

And yet… she always comes to his recitals and the op-ball games in which their school team competes. Every single one. She never stays longer than the duration of the event; always out the door before he can talk to her and revel in the joy of the moment. She usually catches him the next day to talk about it, but only briefly and after that shining feeling has worn dull.

When she takes off to her classes it is like she ceases to exist entirely.

* * *

Lanaai gathers more nuances about their life and a clearer image of reality begins to form. This colony and her family mean nothing to the Hierarchy; no one here does, except the three or four administrative families that have habitations here. Without knowing quite what they do, she knows that her parents work in low-end, high-risk, low-paying jobs to barely scrape by… Sometimes they return home with patched-over injuries. One time her father had to go to the hospital for emergency care and stayed there for several days. When they are not pouring their blood into their unfulfilling labor, they make every sacrifice imaginable to keep her healthy and supplied with everything she needs to succeed.

That is why her meals are always larger than her parents’; why she has an expensive datapad while her parents share a much older model; why her mother works two shifts at two jobs; why her father goes to work after Fourth… so he can see her after school when she is actually _awake._ Lanaai’s motivation comes from her parents misery, which they still try and fail to hide. They tell her to be hopeful, but she knows it is not because they are, but because her ability to get out of here is dependent on her ability to have hope at all. She will. She is determined to pull them up when she earns tier and class.

Lanaai begins secondary academy with the same frigidity she applies to most new situations in her life. She knows what to expect now and she knows how to handle isolation. The pain on her face and chest is literal, because she just received her family markings and her first chapter. Her parents did a perfect job and she feels empowered by her appearance as a marked woman. The simple, white, geometric markings stand out against her carbon-colored plates and match the way she fits into her identity. These markings are permanent, a bold declaration of intent. She will invite a worthy mate to walk with her between the Stars once she reaches them. These markings will not leave her.

Her carefully-constructed apathy comes crashing down when their instructor for secondary Academy introduces himself.

_Welcome, students!_ “Primary academy is over, so prepare yourselves. Primary taught you how to _learn,_ ” _hopefully,_ “and you followed instructions, but here you will be expected to take the helm and guide yourself. I am here to help you reach your potential… but be wary because I cannot save you from sinking.”

The name on the holoboard reads “Desolas Tesarix.” He is stern, intriguing, and wears an implicit mission statement across his chest with a very clear promise: _If you let me guide you, you will be limitless._

True to his word, he guides them. And even truer, some of her classmates sink; some drop out entirely. Lanaai leaves them behind without a second thought and remains focused. Friendships are too costly here unless there is something to be gained. Her interest in engineering and design alienates her from her peers, because everyone else is focused on preparing for military academy or beginning to take apprenticeships with their families. She understands it, but that does not obligate her to hold herself back for them. Her parents refuse to share details about what they do, probably because they want to keep her moving forward; not to stumble into their misfortunes.

Tesarix gives up a lot for his students, including Lanaai. Those who put in the additional effort to earn merit with him are repaid with resources and additional lessons. Lanaai is no exception, and he approaches her one day When he notices her drawing.

_Child,_ “Your draftsmanship is quite developed for someone of your age,” _impressive,_ his voice is gruff and it sounds threatening, but she knows how to handle it by now. He is not polite, but neither is he rude… he simply… _is._

“Before I chose to take this position I worked with Aurer as a design lead,” _I can help you improve._

She does not know what to say so she stammers, _thank you, sir,_ “A-Alright.”

He chuckles at her nervousness, likely finding it unnecessary.

_If you can handle it,_ “I will procure you materials and workbooks if you wish. But,” _listen carefully,_ he raises a finger, “if you accept my help and my resources, your performance will be graded and recorded just the same. In order for me to take you seriously, you must take this seriously. However, good works from you,” _which I know are possible,_ “will apply additional scoring. The better you do, the more I give; time and material alike. High risk, high cost… but a greater reward,” _I have confidence in you._

Lanaai stares at him for a moment and her voice decides for her, _absolutely._

_Wonderful,_ “Your classmate, Delian, has already begun this process, focused on mathematics. You may ask him questions as well,” _because you two barely talk in class._ Lanaai flushes with embarrassment. She knows of Delian.

“You will be expected to work together when you need help,” _you will find strength in your brother,_ “because his grasp on mathematics far supersedes yours… and likewise, he lacks the _vision_ that you have.”

Lanaai nods in response. She appreciates his honesty.

Tesarix keeps his promises and he supplies with her with software, hardware, and information to fast-track her development; she maintains her end of the deal and works much harder to earn merit. She starts speaking with Delian as well, and finds him agreeable. She also notices how Tesarix begins to on-board her other classmates into specialized tracks and helps them individually. The rest are swept into the care of the other instructors.

Lanaai and Delian begin spending time together as they work through their additional assignments. His reserved nature, soft voice, and polite demeanor makes him a pleasure to work with; a pleasure to spend time with. He has the same calming effect on her that her parents do, and in their absence, Delian fills the void. He motivates her as well through the subtle competition of tiers and threat of separation. If she lets him get away from her, they will be moved into separate classes and then they will never see each other again. For all of the walls she has erected around herself, he somehow wriggled his way in. She cannot tolerate another heartbreak.

He does not speak of his family… ever, and staunchly avoids the topic whenever brought up in conversation. She can make inferences, however, based on his skittish demeanor and absolutely insane skill on the sparring mats that his parents, or guardians, push him. He has likely always been _pushed._ She never interrupts him or speaks over him when he speaks, and when other students do so she jumps to his defense. Delian is a wafer-thin glass shell around a million razor blades, and she makes it her duty to keep hold him together.

When their communal transport drops them off at the nearby residential station she watches after him, checking to make sure he is safe. Two older people who bear his markings, likely his parents, are usually present and leave the station with him. She never sees them speak with one another and they always look tense. Abruptly, these figures vanish between one cycle and the next, replaced by a much younger couple, much too young to be considered his parents. Only one of them – the female – has his markings. She was unaware that he had any siblings or close relatives here. Lanaai keeps to herself, even though she is terrified for him.

* * *

They both know that he is going to leave for military academy and it is a foreboding reality. Humans tend to spend extra time in secondary academy while turians take two years to train intensively and become guardians of Palaven before being funneled into military specialization programs. They rarely stay in one location once they chose a path.

Garrus is afraid. He wants to be hopeful but he knows that statistically the odds of seeing Lia again after he completes academy are slim. She will have moved onto university by the time he comes back, _if_ he comes back. After that, she will be elsewhere and occupied. Even if he ends up moving into research and development for his service to the Hierarchy, then it will be under the Hierarchy’s terms. They will place him where he is needed.

They still have two years until then, but it does not seem like enough time and he must acknowledge its presence every time he trains with his father and mother. Bridge has a turian academy, but his parents are already talking and encouraging him apply to Accen Station – the military academy with the greatest prestige and reputation… on Palaven, of course. Garrus is not convinced it will be the best use of his time.

Growing up around humans has diminished what would have been an otherwise powerful motivation to go into the military and gain tier that way. He feels that there are other things that he can do with his life and that his path is to invent things and increase the collective knowledge of the species. Most importantly, his path runs intertwined with Lia’s, and he just cannot see themselves in military roles.

Recently he finds chaos where there used to be tranquility within himself. Garrus knows what is going on: years twelve through fifteen of a turian’s life are what humans might call “puberty.” He starts seeing things in females, both human and turian, that introduce him to new sensations. He notices how Lia’s perfect curvature and proportions send little sparks down his fringes; make his heart beat a little faster.

Sexual education is an absolute riot and he learns all sorts of “interesting facts” about both turians and humans – more than he ever really cared to. The seeds of intrigue are planted in his mind, but he ultimately admits that an intimate relationship with Lia would be very difficult given their physical differences, and not for the reasons he ever could have imagined.

Even if turian males and human males have “similar parts,” there is concern about size, at least for θ’s. Human females are narrower and shallower compared to turian females, but they are more flexible and so much more vulnerable. And still, he imagines what it might feel like to feel such warm, sensual resistance wrapped around him, a body perfectly molded against his. He is ashamed that he cannot stop himself from imagining what it would be like to share such intimacy with _her._

Like most turian males with burrs, he gets into the habit of burnishing his abdominal, pubic, and guide plates… he does so because he must be prepared in case he and Lia… Burnishing significantly smooths over the burred enamel of the plates so they will not chafe soft tissue upon _repeated contact._ Genetics determine the extent of enamel burring and unfortunately he drew a short thread; or a long one. Some recessive allele surfaced from an otherwise “smooth” ancestry. Turian females prefer smoothness because it does not tear or scuff up their own plates and hide during a rut.

“I can’t believe they designed an AI to teach us about your naughty-bits,” Lia grouses after the first session of their mandatory health classes. This is one of the rare occasions where she has decided to drift her way into his house to spend time with him on her own accord. He cannot ask her to leave – her company is too valuable.

_Tell me about it sister,_ “I don’t think anyone in the galaxy has the… the _testicular fortitude,_ or whatever it is you have, to get up in front of-”

She cuts him off with her laughter, a sound so rare and so coveted that he has to pause and drink it in while it lasts. His mandibles flare into a smile.

“-of a bunch of dirty-minded prepubescent and pubescent hormone machines and talk about… about…” _I can’t even say it._

“About… what?” she grins slyly at him. He glares at her in response but flares his mandibles playfully. He sees her eyes flick between his head and his torso briefly.

“I can’t believe they-” she starts and then abruptly stops herself, “-never mind.” She stays for dinner and promptly leaves, much to his dismay.

He also starts seeing things in males: potential competition for what is his.

Gossip runs rampant as his classmates who reach maturity ahead of academy recount their scandalous first experiences rutting females, both human and turian. He finds this attitude rather atrocious, but at the same time he cannot deny the twitch in his guardplates when he finds himself speaking with some of the girls here, including Lia.

The hormones blossoming into his bloodstream adversely affect his demeanor. This period starts to bring out his sarcasm more as he becomes increasingly cynical of the world around him. It must be that Lia’s attitude has started to rub off on him. He has very little tolerance for people who waste his time.

His father continues to train him in hand-to-hand, and through his training Garrus learns about his father. It is really no secret at this point that Castis had an intense life of combat before he was a diplomat. A “diplomat.” After some extranet sleuthing he finds that the word, for turians, is a widely-accepted euphemism for “Special Agent” because there are no true turian diplomats. Castis never talks about it and he does not let anyone else talk about it. It is a subject that he is highly sensitive to, which makes it the _only_ subject he is highly sensitive to.

His father seems to carry knowledge so heavy that he cannot allow anyone else to bear the burden of it, not even his own mate. It has always had Garrus wondering… the events of first contact were all so muddled and hidden by both sides. There is no question that the true nature of what happened was never meant to make it out to the public. He knows about Shanxi and Aegis, for example, but not what happened there. It might be wrong, but so far turian and human relations have been neutral on average, and decent at best; it does not add up. All Garrus knows is that his father has a seemingly infinite knowledge of hand-to-hand techniques and always hits dead center with any weapon he picks up.

Garrus works hard to attain that level of mastery where he once sought to improve his draftsmanship and artistic design skills. He wants to be able to take at least one skill of his for granted; to be unafraid that, in at least one area of his life, he will never make a mistake and ruin something. Violence is just so much easier to understand and control.

Application to Accen Station starts earlier than most because they want to screen out as many turians as possible. A preliminary evaluation is required well in advance. Garrus is ready. He has an appointment scheduled and goes in alone. The group of turians there ask him questions about what he is interested in doing with his life and he does not lie to them – he has nothing to be afraid of. If they find his goals laughable then they may revel in their loss of good potential.

They then hand him a rifle and have him hit targets, stationary and mobile. He makes several slight adjustments to the alignment of his weapon and then hits every single target with perfect accuracy. Easy. Then they begin sending up simulated bipedal targets which require him to think. Krogan, batarian, salarian, asari, quarian, even turian… He knows how to make each shot fatal, destroying the simulated targets with carefully-placed headshots. The turian goes down with a shot to the neck, the projectile must slip between the clavicle and keel to hit the brain with less than a millimeter of tolerance.

The human target, a younger female sporting a DMR… he just cannot bring himself to do it. Instead, he surgically places his shot through her diaphragm, which completely immobilizes his adversary with pain and makes it difficult for her to breathe. She cannot get up, but she has time before she bleeds out. She can still be saved by a doctor and eventually she might forgive him for leaving her.

Finally, they ask him to meditate for five minutes, which is a _really_ odd request, but he does as he is asked, because he is used to it. His father has always stressed the importance of meditation and they begin every sparring session with at least five minutes of silence and stillness. Ten minutes later they pull him from his thoughts of Lia and congratulate him on his acceptance to _become an applicant_. Terrific. He finds the praise ironic because he has only earned the privilege to apply.

* * *

Lia ignores her own fears that she will never see Garrus again after he eventually goes off to academy. She knows it is bound to happen but she just cannot muster up the emotional effort to care. Everyone moves on and she has been working as hard as she can to skip across the surfaces of her relationships with her “friends” like a stone thrown over water. The less of an attachment she has the easier it will be for her to move on with her life when they disappear. Most of these people will never end up in her line of work or help her down the path she wishes to follow.

Everyone is too different or too perfect to merit holding onto. She cannot rely on anyone to be there for her, except for her parents, so she will not risk making any connections she is not prepared to instantly sever. She does not want to know what it feels like to own a broken heart and so far it seems to be working out for her.

But she is obsessive, and she knows it. Lia thinks about Garrus every single day. He has almost no classes with her anymore and it is hard to find time to see him, but he occupies her mind in one way or another. When she even thinks about emotions at all, her mind drifts to Garrus. He is the epitome of what she perceives as her shortcomings and her source of feeling anything in the first place. And simultaneously, he is her definition of strength and happiness; definitely an unhealthy obsession.

He is also turian, so realistically she cannot ask him to be an exclusive item with her because she knows, thanks to the mandatory health and sexual education classes, that turians cannot submit to that behavior. It simply does not work that way without obtaining mods, and she would rather avoid the awkward conversation with her parents: “I want to bond with Garrus, please spend one and a half million credits on a pheromone mod.” Her lips remain sealed.

He will be gone soon anyhow. And when he goes all she will think about is why she cannot dredge up the emotion to care about anyone else the way she cares about him. In the meantime Lia holds her own in martial arts training. She is not very old at thirteen solar years of age, but with advancements in medicine, human children are growing up faster and stronger than ever. Technically the years here are not standardized – on Earth she might be called fifteen or even sixteen. Her father once joked that they moved out here so that he does not have to buy her birthday gifts as often.

Colony children in particular tend to have unique advantages over Earth-native children. The genetic modifications which prevent her from developing many types of terminal illnesses and cancers also cause her to develop faster. Her physical maturity is two or three years ahead of her recorded age, compared to children from Earth, so she is starting to become dangerous on the training mats.

She also notices how males become more appealing. She starts to realize most of these things about Garrus as well, as he becomes exponentially more attractive to her. She has a couple of other human friends who she begins to see as attractive as their physiques begin to fill out and their skin tightens over their developing muscles. Her loss of childlike innocence in the presence of the opposite sex, however, does little to offset her trust issues and other hang ups about meaningless relationships.

And health and sexual education could not come at a worse time because it qualifies everything she has already noticed and also what she _should_ notice about him. They make sure all the trembling, hormone-ridden, young human girls learn _all_ the details about both human and turian males… with an emphasis on turian males in a thinly-veiled fear-mongering campaign to keep them terrified. Or aroused… it is unclear what the goal is, but it is not working. The class has basically introduced them all to the reality that turian males are at the apex of sexual pleasure in every way: vastly superior to their pathetic, soft, small human males.

To make matters worse, an AI teaches the course and pulls no punches with details… millions of credits and the galaxy’s most brilliant minds unified to create this AI to avoid _the positively fatal embarrassment_ of having to explain how turians have recreational and reproductive relations.

She learns all kinds of information she was previously too frightened to look up online, which causes her to view turian males much differently. All of their reproductive mechanisms are scrambled around in an odd way, compared to what she knows of Earth-based fauna: biologically, turian males function more like human females because they deliver the ovum which the female fertilizes internally and gestates, but they still have that… that _tail_ as they call it.

The appendage humans would mistake for a “penis” on a turian male is literally a tail, connected to the spinal column and everything. Turian males do not become erect because they technically always are, and when aroused they uncontrollably secrete a lubricant in the same way humans salivate when thinking about food. The end of the tail has a covered vent which only opens and delivers a single ovum when the female triggers a particular pheromone response following bonding.

Lia thinks about such an appendage, as she knows her female classmates are also thinking about: semi-prehensile and lined with platelets and ridges that expand and contract at will. Privately, she becomes thoroughly flustered imagining what it would feel like pulsating and writhing inside her. Her skin heats up as she imagines Garrus’ eyes drilling into hers, his breath skating across her face, his tail enveloped within her slick heat.

She hears the boys talking between these information sessions, completely shocked, having learned that turian females also have a tail. The turian female cannot extend her tail; she uses it for pleasure during the rut or to force the male to stay inside during conception. Apparently the boys have been _strongly advised_ to avoid intimate relations with turian females if they are at all interested in keeping their ability to have children _attached to their bodies._ That _cannot_ be true. It is too ridiculous to believe.

But… rumors abound. One of the human upperclassmen had to be rushed to the hospital after his penis was nearly pulled off during one of his “sexperiments” with a turian female classmate. Secondary academy is a social disaster – a zoo to keep these fetishists, herself included, locked inside – only thinly-coated by clean-looking architecture, an organized educational system, and salacious minutia.

Most importantly, it puts into perspective why turians can be so casual about “sex.” For them, “rutting” is about as intimate as a massage: it is a friendly courtesy and little else. Humans automatically apply sexual intercourse as the nearest analog even though “rutting” and “sexual intercourse” for turians are completely and obviously different physical acts. It forces her to accept that Garrus could never have a functional intimate relationship with her because she cannot provide him with the proper pheromones or signals to sate him. Her inability to experience what the bond feels like is perhaps the most disappointing fact she has to face.

Maybe she will just have to start saving now, stigma be damned. She _needs_ those mods.

She refuses to look for pornographic content to help sate her desires because she read some statistic that ninety-nine percent of the content now is generated on-demand by a neural network to be as arousing as possible. Any video she could watch containing a turian male and a female human would not represent reality in any meaningful way. Not to mention, turians have no concept of pornography and would never submit themselves to partake in it; the only reason why turians appear in this lecherous content is because asari and human editors have faked them in.

But nothing can stop her imagination. Where she used to enjoy the sight of him at the walls or at the beach without a top because she appreciated his design, she now must look away lest she becomes aroused. Turians have an amazing sense of smell and humans have no control, and she does not want him to mistake her for an animal.

Over the years she has had friends besides Garrus and she passes through their lives easily. Adam, Niko, Marai, Caien, Antera. She never hears from any of them anymore and sometimes wonders if they ever remember her at all. She can find some solace in the fact that hardly anyone would care what happened to her. It means she has fewer potential sources of regret.

* * *

After school ends one day Garrus’ parents request that he accompanies them to the Shepard residence. He knows something is wrong because his parents have never asked him to do this in such an awkward and glib manner before.

“What’s going on?” _I’m worried,_ he asks to both of his parents.

“We know as much as you do,” _I am too,_ is the only answer he receives from his father.

The family is gathered there and Marek stands at the head of the group. He seems to be the only one here who knows the purpose of this gathering. Jess is biting the inside of her cheek as she does when she is deeply concerned about something. Lia looks dejected like she is expecting her father to reveal the date of his death. Garrus looks in her direction but she does not meet his eyes.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” he begins his baritone wavering a bit, “I’ve been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and you all deserve to know. I won’t tell you how long they’ve estimated I have left because it doesn’t really matter – and also those estimates are a lot shorter than reality. So let’s continue to make the best of our lives as we have been. We can all be sad about it now, but don’t dwell on it. I’m obviously not a different person.”

Jess turns and leans her forehead on Avita’s shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut and frowning deeply.

_Be strong, sister,_ Avita pulls her companion closer and keens softly.

_Too soon, brother_ , his father warbles even though Marek cannot understand.

_Spirits do not take him_ , Garrus keens and wrings his hands together. Marek has been a major part of his life and he would not be the turian he is today if not for the many hours of time spent with Lia’s father. His love of music, science, art, and do-it-yourself type tech projects have defined him so profoundly. Garrus has never failed to ask him for advice or help with complex academics like math and computer science. His expertise in all things and the way he effortlessly breaks down complex concepts into language anyone can understand is truly inspiring. Garrus’ _seravim_ bears Marek’s legacy: at least two of his own chapters mention Marek in their intricate patterns.

Lia’s reaction, or lack thereof, breaks his heart even more. It is as if she expected it to be this way; that she is alive only so the universe can bring her down. Garrus wants go over there and hold her but he cannot move his feet. He does not want to make this about himself.

Castis speaks finally, his voice sounding dry, _I am shocked,_ “Thank you for informing us, Marek. All of you are welcome to join us for dinner – let us take the edge off with some delicious food and good company,” _please._

“How does that sound?” Marek asks his wife and daughter with a haunted smile.

“Sounds good,” Lia offers, her voice hoarse, finally looking up at her father. Her eyes are not even glassy. Jess, on the other hand, is completely distraught.

“I don’t have an appetite,” she says between clenched teeth, but in an attempt to be polite she adds, “Maybe just something light.”

Castis pulls out all the stops to offset the news, but not even the galaxy’s best meal can truly overcome the gravity of this revelation. Garrus is not sure that he can get over knowing of Marek’s “imminent” mortality, as if several more years is not enough. Obviously death is something everyone faces at some point, but Marek should not be at odds with it so soon. He needs to be here for his wife and his daughter.

* * *

In the midst of her body going through its heaviest and messiest period of changes yet, she comes home to find Garrus’ family in her home. It is not unusual, but she immediately understands something is wrong. Her father, blunt and genuine as always, reveals his cancer diagnosis.

He has a terminal form of brain cancer: one of the extremely few that genetic modifications cannot eliminate yet. They still, somehow, lack the technology to remove a brain tumor without a nearly one hundred percent chance of ruining the patient’s brain. Lia feels herself immediately slip into denial and realizes that this is just how she will always respond to this kind of news. She does not cry; she hardly feels anything at all. She has been waiting for the universe to take something away as payment for having nice things. She expected reality to be this way, and it has only confirmed her expectations.

For every blessing that she has – a family that loves her, a friend who makes her life worth living, an upbringing free from worry of whether or not they would have enough money to survive, a massive body of knowledge, a decent physical appearance, and powerful motivations to be the best – it makes sense that there must be trade-offs. Surely there must be. Her inability to find happiness in this plentiful garden is one, and now the loss of her father is another.

Her father does not tell them how long he has left and she respects that. In his place, she would not have done anything differently. She honors her father’s wishes by treating him like she always has. She is no less happy to see him when she comes home from school every day or when they talk over dinner about the latest developments in tech or the latest songs they have been practicing. As far as she is concerned, he is the same as he always was.

Her mother, on the other hand, has trouble eating for the next week and stays out at work for longer hours. Her father does not want to pressure his wife about her decision to behave this way because he trusts in her, but that does not prevent him from worrying, especially when Lia also worries.

Lia goes about her life like nothing is different because it really is no different. Her father has always had this problem and they hardly noticed before. He did not flip a switch and change. People come and go at different times – when anyone says goodbye, to her, they might as well cease to exist. She is prepared to deal with loss and loneliness despite knowing how much it will plague her.

The mortality of her father is a bridge she will burn when she crosses it. For now, he deserves to be the same good person he has always been and would continue to be for the rest of his days. She still does not cry about it and wonders why. Is she supposed to cry? It bothers her more and more.

It is also about this time that she begins to learn the extents of her genetic modifications through a series of doctors appointments resulting from what seem like common summer sickness. References and key words that she looks up online certainly explain why she seems to be exempt from the tribulations of her of her human female acquaintances, who are struggling with their menstrual cycles and having ridiculous hormone swings.

She was “designed” to have a premium set of hormone regulators which ensure that she grows linearly rather than in quick bursts, a side-effect of which is to eliminate the menstrual cycle from her entirely. She thinks back to the time she had been assaulted by those other girls, none of whom she has seen since, and wonders how they figured it out. Perhaps they just made an assumption. She supposes they were not really looking for a justification because they really just wanted to beat the shit out of her for fun, or because they felt she represented their problems or their impossible obstacles.

Statistically, ninety-eight percent of the human populace on Bridge has some kind of prenatal gene mods, including the first-generation adults who volunteered to live here. The majority of them also have basic postnatal gene mods – like birth control and immuno-boosters. Basic mods have almost no stigma here, but some children do have more expensive “premium” mods than others. “Premium” mods _do_ have a stigma.

The discrepancy between basic and premium is often a point of contention and segregation. _Preems_ are seen as sub-human and are heavily ostracized once found out. The quality and type of mods available directly reflect the income bracket of the family, and no amount of time could pass which would narrow the divide between how the rich view the poor, and how the poor view the rich. Humanity remains divided.

Lia only knows that her parents are well-off because they worked so hard before she was born, but they make every effort to keep her ignorant to the true scale of their wealth. But it means that no expense was spared ensuring that she would grow up to be healthy, strong, and free from ailments… from _physical_ ailments. Others are not so lucky and only have a standard suite of protections, mandated by the human contingent of the government here.

Turians on Bridge have adjusted to the fact that humans have gene mods and accepted that their weaker bodies require them to live comfortably on this planet. Among turians, however, mods have a much stronger and vastly more negative stigma than with Earth-born humans. Turians refuse to partake in genetic modification of themselves. Only some rudimentary treatments for major neurological disorders like Corpalis are seen as “acceptable.” “Stripping” is also seen as acceptable, especially outside of Palaven, following the induction of the Hierarchy into the galactic council.

She remembers when she was younger and she received what she thought was a simple palate mod and an immune modification which allow her to enjoy turian foods. She remembers how innocently she asked her parents about it and how they smiled and took her to the doctor’s office on the weekend for her appointment. It was all so easy and nonchalant… after doing some research she finds out this mod cost her parents _at least_ six hundred _thousand_ credits. It brings her close to tears that they sacrifice as much as they do for her happiness.

Why? She is not even happy. It brings her even closer to feel just as empty as she was yesterday.


	5. Chapter 5

He knows they are running out of time so he constructs an idea of something he has always wanted to do together with her, and brings it up after school one day. He feels free because he recently earned his civ-class pilot’s license, having blown the test out of the barrel.

He wants to celebrate the extended range… and to use his freedom to give Lia a previously unattainable opportunity: venturing to the starport to watch the reality-defying, massive freight cruisers depart and arrive at night; to sit under the stars and inspire a certain… mood. He wants to give her the opportunity to be _happy._

Garrus seeks her out after school as they head into their weekend rest days.

“Hey Lia!” _I’m happy to see you,_ he grabs her attention as she finishes fussing with her bag and slings it across her back. Her eyes immediately find his and she smiles. That smile is just for him.

“What’s up, brother?” she replies, falling in step beside him.

 _I’m excited to tell you,_ “I was thinking… since I got my license-”

“Oh yeah, rub it in why don’t you,” she jokes and jabs him in the side. Garrus awkwardly laughs with her; she tends to joke about things she finds sensitive as a coping mechanism. She is cynical in general and he enjoys her sharp edges, but this behavior always makes him uncomfortable. She sheepishly rubs her neck and adjusts her bag to the other shoulder.

“Sorry, you were about to say?” she gives him the go-ahead to continue.

“I was thinking… alright here’s the plan: we know the best starships only roll in at night…” _you know where this is going?_

“I like where this is going,” she speaks when he pauses and he watches her grin in his peripherals. Her scent begins to sweeten.

“Then you probably know where this is going. So… if you’re interested-” _let me-_

“Yes!”

“Lia-” _please, woman,_

“Sorry, continue.”

“If you’re interested, I propose we take off late – I can get us there and we can watch them approach. And stargaze. But mainly just drool over the engineering,” _together_.

She glances over and up, meeting his gaze briefly.

“Uh… sure. When are you thinking? How late are we talking here because… I mean I _want_ to, but I don’t… hm. Okay you know what? Yes. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

“Lia you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” _not if you’re uncomfortable,_ he nearly retracts his offer as she recedes, but her voice and body say conflicting things to him.

“Yes Garrus. Let’s do it. It’ll be worth it.”

“Lia-” _Please consider-_

“Garrus! I’m sure. Just tell me when and I’ll be there.”

They part after he sets up notifications on their omni-tools.

Garrus suspects that his parents will find out that he took the vehicle no matter what he does to mask it. His mother is an engineer and probably has their house rigged up so tightly that no amount of caution will get him through whatever hidden security system he has never been told about. His father used to be C-Sec’s top investigator and he _definitely_ has experience in Blackwatch. Garrus just hopes that his parents understand when they inevitably do find out. He cannot, however, predict how Shepard’s parents would react, and he does not want to get her in trouble.

He sneaks out without setting off any alarms or waking his parents. His sister is away on an academy-sponsored trip so she presents no threat either. They have about four hours, which should be enough time. He slips into their family’s only real symbol of wealth: a sporty Coballum skaivette his mother “obtained” and has tuned-up with home-made (and probably illegal) mods. A true midlife-crisis rolled together with a rebellious streak that remained strong even after Castis tamed her. It really kicks whenever he demands acceleration.

Garrus messages her when he arrives at her house barely a minute later and his heart flutters when she emerges from the dark building within seconds, right on schedule. She eases into the passenger seat and looks at him with a nervous glance.

“Alright, let’s go,” she says. He follows her command and moves them into a freeway sliplane. The half-hour drive will take them about one hundred fifty kilometers to the outskirts of the spaceport where they can park the vehicle and move in closer on foot.

After some silence, Lia grabs his attention by opening up the conversation, anticipating what they will see after they start their watch. The thought of witnessing such grand marvels of modern engineering with his Lia beside him starts a rumble of pleasure in the back of his throat. He could listen to her speak passionately about her dreams for an eternity.

He breaks off from the standard approach vector and takes them to a nearby plateau where he stashes the Coballum. The chilly midnight air whips around them, driving him into Lia’s personal space out of instinct. He allows his arms to take her shoulders.

“Down there,” _carefully,_ he points out their path down the slope nearing the boundary fence of the starport.

This is the closest they can physically get under the takeoff vector. He keeps her close because he knows it is more difficult for her to see in this obscurity, but the light bleed from the starport and the bright, clear moon above helps greatly. Towards the bottom of the slope, the vegetation turns soft and grassy. They settle down. With Lia’s warmth spilling onto him, they begin to scan the night sky.

Lia begins pointing out starships on the tarmac in the distance that she can recognize.

“Quasar 700 over there, Garrus. Looks like a new model – I read they use two half-size cores instead of one full-size. Something, something, better efficiency.”

“Seems expensive,” _impressive,_ Garrus joins with her postulating and wandering thoughts.

“Hey now, it’s apparently really efficient. So all that money they spend up front is saved in the long-run…”

About twenty minutes pass before the first freighter drops in over their heads. He looks up in wonder as the massive craft passes above them and slows down to a standstill very close to the boundary. There is something so profoundly humbling about the size of these starships. He turns his gaze to Lia and finds her expression of wonder to be sublime. Whatever weight she always carries just leaves her and he can feel her entire body become tangibly lighter against his.

Then, just as she said it would, the Aurer 381 makes its approach. One of ten ever made. Here. The expression on Lia’s face is pure. The mass effect ash from this behemoth reach them and apply pressure as it passes overhead. Lia begins to have trouble breathing.

“Stay with me,” _just a little longer_ , he rolls over her and uses his body to shield her from the bleed to the best of his ability. She sucks in air as he covers her and then begins to laugh once the effect diminishes.

“Holy _shit_!” her eyes are sparkling, “that was incredibly worth it! Spirits!”

“Gave me a good scare there, Lia,” _seriously_ , he tries to sound light-hearted but he cannot quite pull it off.

“Oh don’t cry about it you big dummy!” she replies, still bubbling, “I’ll remember that for the rest of my life! Amazing. _Breathtaking!_ ” she exclaims with a crooked grin at her own terrible joke.

“Insufferable,” _I agree_ , he rolls back to her side and they resume their gazing. He realizes after some time that he has been staring into her eyes rather than at the ships. He cannot remember how long they have been making eye contact, but he has to tear his gaze away. Something within him broadcasts the warnings of what could happen if he falls down there.

“Thanks for bringing me out here, Garrus. I was nervous at first… but I super don’t regret this,” she turns her face into the crook of his neck.

 _Neither do I_.

They continue to sit there and marvel in silence at the feats of engineering and technology that bless their airspace. His plates are soft and pliable, inviting her deeper. His body wants her to belong there even if he knows he cannot let her in, not so soon before he has to leave her or make her promises he cannot keep.

It takes him longer than he would like to admit to realize that she has fallen asleep. He has been distracted watching the stars and the starships and enjoying every second of Lia’s presence under his wings. He gingerly rises from the ground and clutches her to his chest, fully grasping just how light and small she is compared to himself.

He makes his way make up the slope carefully so that she does not wake up and dump both of them over by flailing about.

As

they

make the journey back up to the skaivette, his attention takes off to a cluster of stars in the night sky. He does not recognize them; and he knows every star above like he knows the edge of his keel ridge. He frowns and pauses, earning Lia’s attention. He feels her tense up, despite the fact that they have reached flat ground once again, softly illuminated by the moon above and parking lights of the Coballum only a few paces in front of them. He is about to ask Lia if she notices the same apparent loss of reality that he does but she stops him. Was he not just carrying her? Was she not just asleep in his arms?

“Garrus,” he hears her voice but it sounds different; clearly hers but much… older, perhaps.

“Garrus do you sometimes feel like… have you ever been so tired that you fall asleep and you don’t realize you’re dreaming?”

He cocks his head and looks at her like she has an extra pair of arms.

“We were just talking about the dynamics of heavy-lift mass field repulsors and now you’re getting all existential on me?” _why do you ask?_

 _Trust me,_ “Do you trust me?”

He places her into the Coballum gingerly, careful not to wake the sleeping human.

He stares at her critically, attempting to parse the cryptic nature of her request. Of course he trusts her, but something else is pulling at the back of his mind. He finds it familiar. He forces himself to reply to Lia.

 _I trust you,_ “I don’t understand. What’s going on right now?” _but I’m confused,_ he glances around to the environment around them: to the stars that do not seem to sit right; the orange dirt which has become several shades lighter somehow; the scattered brush plants that changed their positions. He freezes when he returns his eyes to her and finds the most beautiful turian he has ever see in her place. He must be dreaming – did he fall asleep down there?

 _Trust me, aivo,_ “Some dream, huh?”

 _Spirits,_ “I…” He _knows_ who this woman is and he knows that he has to go with her. He trusts her with his life.

 _Come back to me,_ “I need you to come back with me, Garrus. I miss you.”

Garrus eases the skaivette into the sliplane and heads back for her house.

“Where?” _I trust you,_ “Where are we going to go?”

“I’m hoping I can show you. We’re lost right now and I’m trying to help you come home,” _it’s difficult to know how._

He sighs and begins to collapse when she lifts her crown to meet his and he feels waves of recognition and warmth crash over his plates and permeate his body. He has to go with her but he can barely hang on, and gravity seems to increase in strength while changing direction.

 _I’m trying,_ he keens and tightens his hold on her, wrenching himself upwards in an attempt to keep himself from falling. But no effort of his is enough, and he plummets.

Once he stops and has time to gather his senses, he begins to climb back up. He begins to force himself into reality. She needs him. _She needs him._

He returns her to her nest and leans down.

_Do it. She will never find out…_

He presses his forehead against hers and his legs go weak as the sensation spreads and sparks. He never understood the depth and intimacy of this gesture, having passed it off as a simple tactile exchange, but now he has perspective. Is this what his parents feel every time they do this? Like floating? Like leaving their bodies behind?

This is what he wants, but it does not feel right to take this from her while she cannot reply.

This is what he wants her to know someday, but not right now.

* * *

Lia acknowledges that she is envious of Garrus’ pilot’s license. She has a permit to pilot under supervision but she is still quite terrible at it. She has seen Garrus behind the yoke before and, as with everything he does, he is an instant natural. But she is happy for him because she knows this is a big step for his sense of honor and responsibility.

He shocks her when he presents his unusually-scandalous plan to take them out to the starport after hours to stargaze and watch the “heavies” arrive and depart. The only do so at night. She reluctantly agrees, not really wanting to face the consequences of getting caught by her parents or his, but they are running out of time and she cannot afford to regret this. Even after convincing herself that everything will be fine, Lia feels extremely anxious as the pickup time approaches. The world is black and her parents are asleep. She sits there and waits for Garrus’ signal with extreme anticipation.

There he is, right on time. She creeps from her home in several layers of dark clothing to fight off the cold, and joins him in the dimly-lit skaivette. There is silence for a while and she just enjoys what she can. Garrus has a pleasant, comforting scent – in general his very presence is pleasant and comforting. She does not want to interrupt the comfortable silence, but she just cannot help it. She has to vent her nervous energy by saying something.

“I looked up the public schedule. I think we might get to see an Aurer 381.”

Garrus perks up at the mention of such a craft.

“Now we’re talking,” he replies and takes the conversation further, “I’m shocked that thing holds together in atmo.”

Now Lia really cannot stop herself as the excitement mounts, “ _eight hundred meters_ , Garrus. Unbelievable… they use it to carry _other starships_!” the conversation carries them to their destination quickly.

With the lack of light the hike is more terrifying than she could have imagined, despite her prowess and confidence on the walls. Her humanity proves to be a limitation in every moment. She has to keep her hand clamped around his wrist while he guides her down the steep slope of the basin, inside of which the starport nestles. She curbs her surprise when they suddenly approach the boundary fence sooner than she expected.

She looks to the stars for a moment before finding her place beside Garrus, allowing herself to lean on his unmovable form. They recline on the soft, sloped grass and listen to the rumble of the spaceport. Around this time the freighters start to pile in. Civilian transports and cruise liners are never as impressive as the much larger cargo haulers and occasional turian super-cruisers that stop here.

They begin to chatter about what they can spot. A “small” freighter arrives shortly afterwards. She revels in the sensation of the mass effect drives applying pressure to the atmosphere. The tangibility of the craft, even at this distance, is visceral. They produce an indescribable scent as well that identifies them as mass-effect-driven craft.

She cannot stop herself from stealing glances at Garrus to reassure herself that she is not alone in her reaction. She can feel the rumble in his chest and she allows herself to fall deeper into his grasp. She keeps her eyes peeled and then spots the main event: the 381 approaches and dwarfs everything at the starport. The effect from its drives are so prominent that she cannot fill her lungs with air. The adrenaline starts pumping as her system begins to panic and fret, but Garrus uses his body to occlude the field impact and allow her to breathe.

The scale of it makes her feel brutally insignificant but oddly reassured. She wants to be the inventor of this feeling and she wants Garrus to be there with her as her guide and her friend. Love and complication be damned – any relationship with Garrus would be so effortless and freeing, most would not consider it love. It is fun to pretend.

This is what she wants.

She knows with more certainty than ever that this _is_ what she wants. She does not know if it would make her happy, but at the very least it would take the pain away. Never has she felt so safe and so accepted, so wanted, so loved in this way. She suspends her own disbelief for a moment and allows herself to drift deeper into him, becoming completely lost. He makes no protests when she turns herself over and presses her face into his neck. She does not know what to do with herself at this point, so she just pauses and relaxes here, safe and silent.

She wakes up in the morning wondering how he returned her here without waking her.

* * *

Tesarix stops her as she leaves the classroom, several periods before the end of her final year in Secondary Academy. Before she can inquire, he speaks in his pleasing baritone.

 _I am proud of you,_ “I am very pleased with your progress, Lanaai, and so are some of my former colleagues. I have made damn sure that the finest academies on Palaven have seen your work and know of your potential.”

 _Thank you. Sir,_ “I… I am… I can’t believe it.”

 _Believe it,_ “Expect to start receiving correspondence from their recruiters. You must still write an application, but that is only required as a formality.”

 _What about-,_ she already starts thinking about Delian.

 _Him too,_ “And Delian. You two are my top students. I took this position to find skilled and motivated individuals like yourselves and prevent them from slipping into…” _pov-_ he stops himself, but she knows what he was going to say, “…and every year I am surprised yet again. You are destined for great things, child,” _so remain strong._

She returns to an empty home, and once her parents enter the kitchenette to prepare Third, she breaks the magnificent news to them.

 _So happy!_ “Tesarix talked to me today about my studies!”

 _And? I anticipate,_ “Was he pleased?”

 _Very much so,_ “Yes! And he has been talking with his… former colleagues. I says I will be able to attend military academy on Palaven!”

 _Spirits guide us! Our daughter! So proud,_ “Wonderful news, starlet!”

 _Such an honor,_ “What an amazing opportunity!” her mother sweeps her up into a hug. Her parents exchange an undecipherable glance before returning to their doting. Lanaai pours over her projects with them while they listen and occasionally ask questions. She knows by now that neither of her parents are particularly… technical, but she believes they enjoy hearing her speak about her goals and her dreams anyway. It is reassuring to them to know their daughter has the future in mind and not… what they are going to eat tomorrow.

Like a gift many months before the _Annulus_ celebration, she finds several messages in her inbox bearing famous names: Accen Station, Valeran, Cipritine-Δ, Nanus-λ, Trebia’s Eye, The Crucible, etc… her heart begins to race as she scans her options. The feeling of hope blossoms in her chest and she just cannot stop smiling. The future of her family is looking up.

* * *

Garrus is accepted to Accen Station and placed into the highest echelon of trainees. He has the distinguished honor of attending the academy “a year early,” even though his Palaven-standardized age places him at sixteen-ish: a year _late._ Applications were not easy – he had been tasked with a number of physical demonstrations to show off his skills with martial arts and weaponry. They also had him work through tactics scenarios and maneuvers, engineering problems, and even writing and communication.

It bothers him, not because he finds the process particularly difficult, but because it takes up all of his free time during the Summer break period. He should have been doing other things with Lia. He wants to make the most of his remaining moments with her.

The Shepards and the Vakarians have a little get-together to celebrate the news of his acceptance, all overshadowed by the fact that he will be leaving in just a few periods.

“You’ll need to be careful Garrus,” Lia jokes with him, “that you slow down enough to let your superiors keep up with you.”

“I’m sure my superiors would appreciate the insubordination,” _not that I’d care_.

“So the first day you walk in there… you need to make sure everyone knows what you’re about. So you’ll walk up to the lead officer and you’ll bust out your best interpretive dance moves,” Lia mocks up what she imagines to be interpretive dance which gets him to start laughing.

“Spirits, stop! If I do that they’ll _instantly_ kick me out,” _I cannot believe you, woman!_

“Their loss! You never know, sister, you need to put your hips into it,” she body checks him with her hips, jolting him to one side.

 _Spirits save me!_ “Lia! You’re embarrassing me. Embarrassment by proxy! I thought we agreed that was unethical.”

“That’s just because you’re easy to embarrass.”

Marek pokes his head into her room, “food is ready.”

They head to the back yard to conquer their meals. His mind drifts to other places while the group eats. Garrus does not quite participate in the conversation, but enjoys the feeling that they all seem to be collectively happy. Usually he defaults to feeling preoccupied about what he is going to do with himself and how he will go about following his path after Accen inevitably diverts him from it, but he can temporarily forget that feeling here.

He feels the tension Lia tries to hide from him, but there are just certain signs she cannot cover up. It makes it even worse, knowing that the smell of her will be absolutely burned into his mind and haunt him no matter where he goes or what he does. Growing up around humans, he knows about their views of turian recreational intercourse, “rutting” as his people refer to it – it has influenced how he thinks about it, but he will be absolutely unable to deny his basest urges. When he cannot, he will feel awful and dirty because he will be thinking of her. About betraying her.

Garrus wants to be hers probably as much as she wants to be his, but he knows that is an unrealistic expectation to have. Once he goes off to Accen, his chances of seeing her again are incredibly dubious. Lia needs a proper chance to find a mate who can be there for her.

In the meantime, he knows she will drop communications with him like she does with anyone else who does not talk to her regularly, or no longer has a reason to communicate with her in the first place. She will pull all of herself away from his life and make herself irrelevant to him. If he sees her again she will be just as distant as any other stranger. If he talks to her, even face-to-face, it will be like talking through a window. Anticipating the loss of someone who has so profoundly affected his identity from the moment they met has him losing sleep and fever dreaming frequently.

They complete their last starship together – the _Terminus_ – the final model is beautiful, but its implications are ugly. They agree to hang her up in Lia’s room for now as if there will be a _later_. The accomplishment is truly bittersweet because they both know it is a monument to the end of their active friendship.

There is a three day gap where the silence is the worst it has ever been.

“Thanks for grabbing lunch with me Garrus,” she smiles at him without covering up her sadness and resignation. But she never cries. “Let me know if you’re ever in town, we’ll hit up the walls or… do whatever really. I’ll be down for it.”

“You know I will, Lia,” _I will come back to you,_ he purrs back, knowing that if she cannot hear it then at least she can feel it. He almost says it; he almost tells her what he wants in a moment of impulse, but he cannot leave her with a promise they both know he cannot keep.

“See-ya, Garrus,” he hugs her and then they part ways. She is gone the moment she leaves his arms and she does not look back as she disappears into the nearby parking structure to find her vehicle. This is the last time he sees her because he wakes up early in the morning the next day, grabs his duffel bag, rifle, and guitar, gives his parents one final embrace at the starport, and leaves on the Accen-paid flight.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A difficult chapter in more ways than one.

Lia is attracted to Garrus in all manners of speaking, but she has filed the dreams away as unrealistic and irrational. He has too many things going on. She can tell him that she wants to be his forever, that he is perfect for her because he makes her feel like her existence matters, but she cannot ask as much from him. He will have to find someone else – a turian – because that is just how it works. And she will hope someone else is extroverted-enough to find her worth the effort.

Her other turian friends, Caien and Antera, are going through the same ordeal and they will be gone soon. She was prepared to let them go from the moment they met, however.

Adam is close to her, but he is going to have the same set of problems. He will be leaving for some language immersion program on Earth and plans to attempt to find long-term work there as a history or literature teacher. His mind is made up; no use hanging onto him either. Niko already has an internship on the Citadel and he will not be returning here. Marai is going to Horizon to complete her studies and follow a masters program in ecology.

Lia and Garrus spend time together and it is almost like she can pretend they are involved. He is always interesting to her and interested in her which is not a quality no one else has except her parents. In the days before he leaves, they finish one final starship model, their crowning achievement together: the _Terminus,_ they call it. It has an actual eezo core and can make slow, yet still very real maneuvers via a remote controller.

She and Garrus have one last lunch together, just the two of them, during which she plays off her displeasure with her usual facade of snarky humor. Lia goes to sleep that night knowing she will never see him again and wondering whether or not it will affect her.

She has two more years of school to slog through before she moves onto university. Her dad has about two more years to be alive, based on her best guesses. Perhaps Garrus will come back and visit her occasionally so she can remind herself why their relationship would not have worked in the first place, and that she is strong-enough to cope with a dangerous addiction.

* * *

He receives some odd looks from other turians who eyeball the instrument case on his back strapped beside his rifle. He is expecting them to bother him about it because he knows they will not understand, but in reality it seems like no one even knows what it is. It shocks him more than it should that most of them are totally ignorant to the existence human culture. He has to force himself to remember that most of these turians are from Palaven or colonies with no alien influences.

Garrus’ Varai-Vakarian markings distract everyone from the fact that he did not grow up on Palaven. The reputation of his clan speaks for itself: “We are honored and we are legion”. He has been “awarded” a cramped nesting pod with some extra space outside, which is perfectly acceptable because it means he has some form of privacy in case he needs to shut out the noise. He arranges his few belongings and makes the space his own for a moment before returning to the hallways to map out the station.

He has been thoroughly informed that turians who come from Bridge are judged harshly. This is why he has worked so hard: he wants to be so far ahead of his skeptics that they do not even consider dishonorable judgment to be an option. They need to see that pulling down on him will only leave them in the dirt. He is going to play his damn music and no one will have the resolve or courage to silence him.

He already has to deal with some irritating commentary about the human instrument and how it does not belong here, implying that _he_ does not belong here. Garrus says nothing, instead opting to glare his verbal opponent into submission. He quickly identifies weaknesses in case he needs the ammunition: his markings are slightly sloppy which meant he probably squirmed a lot during the etching process… or his parents could not hold their hands steady.

He nearly blurts out “wow I can’t believe you’re talking to me.”

Being unnecessarily confrontational is a sign of weakness and an oversight from a strategic standpoint. Yet here he is, wasting Garrus’ time in the finest military academy the Hierarchy has to offer. Did his family name buy him a way in, or did he manage to fake his way through applications? Perhaps the admissions committee wanted to show him just how unprepared he was among other turians with honed skill, or maybe they wanted to give him a second chance. Either way, Garrus already feels he does not deserve it. The confrontation ends as soon as it begins because his opponent stupidly assumed Garrus would stagger into a fight.

On the first day they are introduced to their instructors. Their little spiels bother him because he has not come here to be treated like a wee lad, and his instructors should know better. If they insist on this perspective, he will just have to ruin it for them. Maybe the interpretive dance option is not a bad idea after all.

At least he is put into tech and engineering as requested, which brings him some degree of happiness. This is the group with the least number of people who also happen to the quietest and the most intelligent. That makes him even happier. He understands how to deal with their social ineptitude enough to see the true personalities these individuals wished others would see.

The adjustment period is difficult for some of the cadets, who recoil from the sudden isolation by forming cliques and seeking out ways to drain the stress. As if to exemplify this phenomenon, he is accosted by some Palaven-born turians who either do not like his family or have found out about his life on Bridge. The parallel to Lia’s encounter four years prior is undeniable but now he must fend for himself.

He always wears a visor. Always. At any given moment it has at least an hour of footage buffered up for archive. He discreetly starts recording this interaction of theirs for posterity, because he knows he will need the evidence to bail himself out of trouble after he hands their asses to them and they attempt to frame him for assault. In general, turians with sufficient mental faculties can determine caliber of an opponent before engaging in a confrontation – these turians are stupid. Definitely α’s the lot of them.

He begins with his usual verbal strategy; “always attempt diplomacy,” _with one hand on the gun at your side,_ as his father says. It could either stop them now, or make them angry and sloppy, a win-win. So he makes sure to provoke them into confessing to their crime before committing it.

“So you are absolutely sure you are going to ‘teach me a lesson’ as you put it – and by that you mean repeatedly beating me in the unprotected areas of my face, neck, and dare I say: waist?” _try me,_ he emphasizes his words, slathering them with sarcasm.

“That’s a lot of talk Vakarian. And you’re outnumbered,” _we don’t like you_.

 _I gathered,_ “So you _are_ threatening me. Wonderful. Well then it looks like I have no other options but to defend myself, little boy. Let’s dance!” _are you able?_ Garrus mocks.

He waits for his opponent to initiate and then easily takes him down. None of these turians have the training that he does and they barely have the strength that he does. Bridge’s higher natural gravity granted him more muscle mass. He guesses that they have been somewhat shielded from achieving proper merit by their high-tiered families.

It does not require much effort to handle the situation. Numbers mean nothing when he has strategic placement on his side. The group is not coordinated which makes it easy to use their “numbers” against them. It feels pretty good to resort to violence, for once, because recently he has this itch that only seems to find relief from cutting loose.

His stunt had earns him a meeting with the commander on base, Octavian Intalus. He expects to have to defend his actions but the commander congratulates him on his foresight and strategy, and assigns him to a hand-to-hand mentor and a weapons specialist, effectively exempting him from half of the stupid time-wastey exercises most other trainees have to go through.

“We do not live in an orderly galaxy. In our academy, you earn your position both by holding yourself to the highest standard… and by putting others in their place. You will follow orders and you will not insubordinate your superiors, but you will demonstrate that you are stronger and smarter than your peers, Vakarian,” _or you will be trodden upon,_ “You will put them in their place both on and off the fields. It seems they have learned their lesson. I am also impressed with your form and effectiveness. I’m raising your sub-tier and assigning you a specialist to hone your CQC skills” _good job, whelp,_ Intalus stares at him with a very unemotional expression.

“This type of thing happens all the time,” _believe me,_ he continues , “and it is the quickest way to spot who moves up and who moves down. They learned their lesson, they will be less likely to step out of line again. I expect great things from you, officer.”

 _Thank you, sir_ , Garrus nods politely and moves on with his training. He never sees those turians again as they are lost into the obscurity of low-level training.

He thinks about Lia.

Although they are barred from outside contact while here, it is an unspoken truth that everyone communicates outside of training. They are given limited access to the extranet so they can keep up to date with current events and have access to research materials, so by extension they can also talk with friends and family back home. Most turians avoid doing so because they want to honor the experience and the tradition of this formative period. Others refrain from doing so because they actually do want to get away from their families and start a new life as a warrior of Palaven.

He holds off his body’s growing hunger for about two weeks before it becomes absolutely unbearable.

“Spar, Vakarian?” _please?_ one of the females in his tech group, Kirin, steps up to the mats while he stands there, tense. He nods and steps onto the mat. It looks like she is eyeing his plates hungrily, but he must be seeing things. He has no idea why she decided to take him to the mat when she knows she stands no chance against him. He eyes her up and down, admiring her figure, before responding to her opening maneuver.

He trades motions with her for a while as he remains distracted, unable to clear his head. When she shifts her stance to pull him to the mats for an attempt at a pin, he whips her to the ground and secures her. One hand finds her keel and the other takes her hip to keep her from rising for the next several seconds. His mind wanders to the apex of her thighs… where her guardplates _twitch._ He growls. He stands up slowly, drenched in her pheromones, just barely noticing her tap out and stand up in front of him.

 _Rut, now,_ he growls to her.

 _Take me,_ she replies in the same register, stepping to his side and following him from the mats.

Once they arrive at his nest she tears off her waist wrap and plants her chest against the padding, arching her back pushing her hips towards him. His guideplates tear away from the opening of his sheath, sending droplets of lubricant onto the soft hide of her rear, between the plating. Kirin can hardly handle it any longer and her guardplates pull the lips of her sheath apart for him before he even touches her.

Garrus takes her hip with one hand and her cowl with the other to steady her. He adjusts legs to stabilize himself and pushes his guideplates into the opening of her sheath. Kirin vibrates and moans from the contact while he tries to concentrate. The protective membrane bridging the slit of his sheath snaps in a twinge of pain as his tail breaks through it. He growls at her as he pushes until he splits her thin membrane and reaches her _cilix,_ at which point he stops and waits for her to adjust. Her sheath convulses and contracts, griping him incredibly tightly. It feels truly amazing. Her tail squirms and tries to move around him, but she does not have any room left. The base of his tail swells inside his sheath to keep it from moving now that it has determined how deep she is.

She vocalizes. He begins to thrust his hips into hers vigorously so that he can hear every repeated contact. He does not want her to look at him. He does not want to see her face. He just wants to feel the relief without thinking about it. Kirin reaches down and gropes at the protrusion in her abdomen while he continues to move. He desires more so he stands up and pushes her against the wall, and continues to move while her feet search for something to stand on. In an effort to keep her legs from flailing about, he wraps his hands under her knees and pushes them against the wall next to her.

He finally feels the sweet warmth of relief, like the tension is draining from his muscles. His partner becomes satisfied before he does and courteously allows him to finish up before quietly thanking him with trembling legs, a shy smile, and a blush. He nods back to her. Maybe he needed this experience to convince him of the true detachment of rutting after growing up around humans, because he feels totally indifferent towards the woman who just left his company. He does not feel as guilty as he expected he would, but he still wishes there was some other way. His mind returns to Lia.

“Forgive me,” _Spirits save me,_ he mutters. But perhaps he can reconcile his confusion with the fact that no female will ever take her place.

While his progress is quick and while he makes his mentors proud, he disappoints himself by falling away from his original goals of creating things. It is a remnant of Lia and he would rather die before he lets it go. At least he is able to play his music in private. A couple of his tech group peers find out and enjoy listening to him play, but they do not talk about it outside of their gatherings.

Garrus rapidly jumps ranks and pulls anyone who trusts him along for the ride. His mental maturity and unwillingness to allow anything to compromise his goals take him where he needs to go often at the cost of meaningful friendships. His sharp tongue and sarcasm often confuse his enemies enough to allow him the upper hand, or snap his subordinates in line. And the faster he gains rank, the faster they take him away from design problems and put him in combat leadership roles which he almost immediately grows to hate.

Tech is wonderful because it behaves as he predicts, and he has resources at his disposal. He is free to create things, solve engineering problems creatively, dream of things with his mind and render them with his hands. Leadership is just commanding incompetent people to perform a task and then watching them not do it well. Intalus claims that Garrus will eventually have access to more experienced teams, but not right now.

Additionally, he has a contradictory combat skill set that makes him a tactical nightmare in the field: an expert in extreme precision at close range and long range, but not really in the middle. His image of how the universe works is clear and it makes predicting enemy maneuvers very easy. He either needs the entire picture, or he needs small slice of it. The middle – where the model is the most obscured by obstacles and where the details remain inscrutable – is where he suffers.

Moving fast means he must quickly say goodbye to his tech team companions. He receives a larger living space and a more intense training regimen which sucks all his other hobbies down the drain. He supposes once this is all over he can just go back to doing what he had planned to do all along, but for now he is going to do so well that no one would want to question his decisions later.

When his aching body finally forces his hand, he makes sure to find the strongest hand-to-hand opponent from the most obscure training group on this station. At the very least, he wants to minimize the chance he would ever see her again so she will never have to bring it up. She outranks him and nearly outperforms him, but he is better. She submits on the mats and follows him.

Grab her waist, hold her steady with her back facing him, and suck the relief from her warmth. There is no attachment. Despite the implied “courtesy” to help out if one partner lasts longer than the other, it is very much an individualized act. Although, it varies depending on whether or not the individuals are close friends. But one thing remains true: it is neither intimate nor romantic. Relief is quick and he is sated. The female looks a bit flustered before scrambling off hastily without much acknowledgment besides a quick _thank you, ivo._ He never sees her again. Good.

He continues to move up in rank and he beings to develop a reputation among his peers. Whether or not it does him any favors remains to be seen; some say he has an ego, others stand with his leadership. Refusing to acknowledge victory and defeat as concepts makes his approach to tactics both unorthodox and highly effective. To Garrus there are only unresolved and resolved problems, and once he closes one problem he moves on to handle the next one. There is _always_ another problem to solve. Vengeance is like a massive ball and chain which he refuses to attach to himself. Victory is a needless distraction and a risk of complacency.

Two years later when he finishes up with boot camp he is the highest rank they allow him to be: Lieutenant III. His tier, however, is much higher than his position would suggest. Garrus has not lost sight of his dreams and he has not lost the music, but he is moving forward quickly now. Someday he will be able to go find Lia again and he will be able to have her because no one will want to tell him he cannot. That is, if she will still have him. They will make it work.

He is rated for hand-to-hand, operation, tech, tactics, and even vehicle operation and maintenance. He is immediately contacted by four post-academy training programs to hone his skills and get some real-world missions under his plates. All of these channel into Special Forces, Blackwatch, and the Cobalt Guard; the “underworld” as Intalus refers to them. He tells the representatives that he will attend the first academy who can send someone to beat him in a sparring match, otherwise he will apply for an engineering degree at a university.

He is half-disappointed when one of the four academies agrees at all. The rep they send out is their master of techniques. Garrus holds his own until his opponent starts pulling out some really obscure maneuvers. She is strong, flexible, and light, and she can redirect her entire body with ease. She finally pins him into a joint lock which he cannot break despite his strength advantage.

She then has him for a rut right there in the middle of their private sparring room much to his self-disgust. He does not want his body to comply with it, but it does anyway and he feels much worse after the rut than before. His partner makes a comment about it, making her the first one to notice the cracks in his facade.

“You’re missing someone,” _you are empty,_ she says to him, after she stands and drops his tail from her sheath unceremoniously, “I could tell – it wasn’t me you were holding.”

Garrus flushes with embarrassment. No one has ever noticed or made a comment about this. He decides not to acknowledge it.

“Thank you for the relief,” _don’t talk about it,_ he simply says, refusing to give her any detail.

 _Thank you, ivo,_ She trills politely, despite his rude reply, as she reaches down and pulls him to his feet. She grabs two towels and hands him one so they can clean up the evidence of their activities.

“On behalf of our academy, Lieutenant, we are pleased to have you attend,” _you have potential._

“It is an honor,” _I will endure it,_ he replies without excitement, willing the interaction to be over. His mind is still floating around somewhere else. He regrets making that _stupid_ bold claim, and hates that he cannot bring himself to withdraw his promise. He is stubborn, and perhaps too cocky, and he allowed himself to believe that he was so in control of his own fate that he should tempt it. Garrus will never make this mistake again, but he cannot refuse or his risk losing any semblance of honor. He accepts their invitation for further training.

It is right as he returns home to Bridge for a new set of chapters and much-needed break that he hears about Marek’s death.

* * *

Lanaai’s applications are all accepted, but she ultimately chooses to attend Cipritine-Δ for its potential to put her nearby the Hierarchy’s finest engineering firms once she graduates and moves onto specialization. She does not know if Delian knew, but he tells her of his choice in his soft, soothing tenor.

 _Must be fate,_ “Looks like a few more years together,” he shows her the datapad with a big, fat, _ACCEPTED_ plastered nearby the “Cipritine-Δ” insignia.

She tries not to sound too happy about it. Maybe she loves him, but at the very least she is elated that her only true friend here is going to go with her into a completely different world. Her parents are also so happy for her, and what their celebration lacks in materials it makes up for in warmth and more good news, if such a thing was possible.

 _More good news,_ her father chirps, “Your mother and I have accepted tier raises,” _thanks to you,_ “And we have enough credit to move to Cipritine for new postings.”

Lanaai hugs her father tightly and he grunts at the surprising strength of her little arms, then she turns to her mother who nuzzles her crown. She cannot believe they are finally going to break the cycle and leave this place. Their family is a team and they have overcome a seemingly impossible obstacle. She also takes the time to thank Tesarix, who made it all possible.

 _Remember what you can accomplish,_ “You will face hardships and loss, but you are strong. You will succeed because it is who you are,” he stares down at her and his chest puffs slightly with pride. Praise is challenging for her to handle, especially when it comes from him. She bows her head and tries to not to drown beneath the emotion of it.

She and Delian ship off on the same transport to Cipritine and pour over articles, photos, vids, and holos to prepare themselves for it. Her parents are scheduled to round out their work quarter and then move to their new home in Cipritine-44 within the next two weeks. Lanaai can hardly wait to begin a new life.

* * *

The Shepard family perseveres. Treatments dramatically slow the cancer down but they cannot eliminate it. Marek deals with it like a champion, refusing to let the treatments ruin his life. He continues to jog, workout at the gym, climb with Castis at the walls, and ride his bike every day of the week right up until the bitter end. He keeps playing music and working on the odd programming project. He still assists with the music program at Lia’s secondary academy, working on arrangements and teaching the young musicians how to speak through their instruments.

He requests euthanasia just so he does not have to deal with the painful headaches any longer. He would rather go out at his peak than slowly wither and die in agony.

The Vakarian family, including Solana, and his wife gather for his passing and say their goodbyes. He requests time alone with each of them so he can speak privately. According to his wishes, they are not allowed to be with him while he… while he _dies._ Jess argued with him about, weakly, but he refuses to put them through that trauma; the last memories they should have are of him speaking and breathing and being _alive,_ not withering and passing.

Jess goes in first and returns with a stony expression. Castis goes in next and exits without showing any change in attitude. He and Marek always have some strange camaraderie that she does not understand, because Marek does not have this relationship with anyone else that she knows of, including his friends and former colleagues. Avita’s turn is short, and she keens after closing the door behind her, pushing herself into her mate’s arms. Solana is very much the same, and she has to join her parents.

Lia stands and enters the room, not sure what to expect. She does not know why she expected him to be lying in a hospital bed. He waves to her from his position at the window looking out towards the coastline.

“Hey there, Lee-ya. How’s my little girl?”

Lia cannot speak to him. He smiles and talks to her anyway, soothing away what would otherwise be a total emotional breakdown.

“I don’t want to make this hard for you, but, well… this isn’t exactly normal. I hope that I’ve prepared you, Lia. I’m so proud of what you’ve accomplished and I know you will accomplish so much more. Know that I love you more than anything. Even if you cannot talk to me personally, I’ll find my way back to you, in one form or another.”

He pulls her into an embrace and holds her while time dilates.

“Alright, Lia, I think it’s time,” he says quietly and ushers her towards the door.

And just like that he is gone. She closes the hospital door and leaves him behind. Lia goes to sleep that night knowing that he is just one more person she will never see again. The Vakarians extend an invitation – a plea really – for her to stay over whenever she feels like she needs the company and support.

Jess stays strong. Her mother is more emotional, but she also distracts herself from problems by working. Lia inherits that from Jess. This leaves Lia alone in her household very often. She becomes a better cook and her tolerance for unclean spaces becomes extremely low. In her eighteenth year of life, she learns how to live without the constant reassurance of parental figures and to handle responsibilities expected of any adult. None of this makes her any less introverted.

Lia’s father leaves behind a massive fortune of wealth which she only learns about by reading his will. The way her mother speaks about it, however, indicates the presence of additional hidden accounts with even more credits. There is also something missing… it makes her uneasy but she cannot quite put her finger on it.

Her parents were always extremely frugal with their money and made good investments. At the very least, Lia can rest-easy knowing that they will not have to struggle to live their lives – it is not what her father would have wanted. Lia goes into full denial because it is the only way she knows how to cope.

She imagines. There have been mornings, even in this month of his passing, on which she has awoken to find her father missing because he was off running errands, or nights where she went to bed and her father was absent because he was playing music with his friends. She just imagines every day is like those, only without the promise of his inevitable return. She spends time with the Vakarians because her mother is often not at the house due to her research projects, but she detects this aura of pity which was not present before. It makes her feel like an invalid, so he stops seeing them as frequently just to avoid it.

The solitude becomes an addiction.

She almost cries, but she holds back. She has math and science homework still left to do because those are the two classes she has tomorrow. Her turian classical literature essay has already been completed so she does not have to worry about that. School starts early in the morning so she needs to get some sleep, but only after she goes to martial arts training and practices piano. She eats a bowl of cereal for dinner because she does not have time to run to the grocery store and pick up the ingredients she used up last night. Her mom might come back in two days to spend time with her. She dives back into her life. She knows it will be this way forever, but hopes that it will not always be this bad.

Her close friends do not notice anything different about her. Perfect. This is exactly what she wants because the more pity people take on her, the less of a human she becomes. Adam does make a passing comment, sounding unsure of his observation, but she questions what it is he thought he saw. He backs down, wanting to avoid setting her off. Marai can sense something, but she does not ask.

Her father prepared her for the world. She is able to take his gifts of knowledge and apply them. His death was neither in vain, nor was it untimely as everyone else seems to think. She is a self-sustaining being and she is capable of using her skills to improve herself. Her father passed away knowing she would graduate with some of the highest distinctions in her class, proud of her for always working on interesting projects and playing music and creating beautiful works; for being the exemplary human being he wanted the galaxy to witness.

He had been happy that his daughter could continue to take his drive to create and his infinite curiously to the next level. He had set out to raise a child who could make the universe a better place and he knew that he had succeeded.

Lia understands her own denial and her own grief. She misses her father deeply in the weeks after his passing and she just lets the worst of it pass, knowing that time will slowly cure the bitterness. The only silver lining is that she will never have to worry about disappointing him ever again… disappointing loved ones is still one of her greatest fears and one of the main reasons she leaves so little of herself behind in the lives of others.

At first, she does not know why she applies for a military engineering academy. But it slowly dawns on her the more she thinks about it. Her mother is really opposed to the idea, but supports her anyway. Lia’s “justification” is that she wants to have the ability protect herself and others. She wants to be stronger and she wants the resources. Her mother argues that there are other options which would get her what she wants but Lia has made up her mind. Though, the way her mother speaks about the Alliance, especially while invoking Marek’s name, seems dreadfully suspicious to her.

In reality, she views the Alliance as the ultimate distraction. She wants to be over-tasked and over-worked until she either expires from the pressure, or until she loses the ability to feel the sting of loneliness. She does not want to be anywhere that reminds her of what she lost or what made her this way.

The Vancouver Academy on Earth is her ideal destination. They have one of the best engineering programs anywhere – even non-humans attend. The Alliance will also pay her tuition if she can achieve a scholarship. Lia knows money is not an issue for them, but she wants to prove to herself that she can do it and become a single, independent entity. And privately, she hopes that the training will forcefully rectify her weird confidence issues and cause her to at least understand how to be more social and open.

She powers through her last year of school. She writes her applications for universities with a heavy focus on getting into The Vancouver Academy. She does not even expect them to admit her given her background and the lack of “normal people” things she does.

Adam takes her to their final dance, something she had not been planning on doing because no one talks to her and she has better things to do. He asks her at the last minute, and what she initially reads as interest quickly reveals itself to be desperation. She assumes that he has some issues of his own and wishes to remain sound with his other friend group. Just like her, he probably just wanted to prove to himself that he could do it, not because he actually wanted her to be there with him.

She does not hold it against him, it just means that he is really more of a predictable and stereotypical person than she initially thought. She feels betrayed by her own inability to notice it and for allowing herself to grow more attached to him in Garrus’ absence. He makes up for it by being generally friendly with her otherwise. It does not take away from his sense of humor or his intelligence, it just means that she will never be able identify whether or not someone might want to start a serious relationship.

She leans away when he attempts to kiss her and turns him down when he offers to bring her back to his place for the night. They see each other very infrequently after that.

She still thinks about Garrus every day. Even thinking about “thinking” reminds her of Garrus somehow.

 _Am I running out of toothpaste? Do I need to plan to get milk from the grocery store after school? What are my tasks for the day? What will I eat for lunch? Dinner? How is Garrus doing? Does he think of me? What does my homework workload look like? Did I remember to send off the electricity bill? Etc…_ She has not heard from him in two years, nor has she heard from his parents about him. They assure her that unless the Hierarchy notifies of a death, that he is fine.

Lia helps Solana with her studies because she feels obligated to make sure Garrus’ sister has the same help that she received from Garrus. Solana will be going off to academy soon and following in her brother’s footsteps. Just like her brother, Solana is incredibly bright and she will have no trouble making it far in life.

Solana has every asset that Garrus has: beauty, intelligence, a sense of humor that she agrees with, and an impossibly powerful will to succeed. She also has his weaknesses: stubborn, sometimes too cocky, and the inability to forgive herself for any errors she feels she makes. But, where Garrus was impossible to read due to his stoicism, Solana is like an open book. Her emotions are unrestrained and she has the happiness that Lia lacks. Solana takes after her mother.

Sometimes, in the tranquil emptiness of her home, Lia thinks about what herself and Garrus would be like together. Her angry and desperate body wonders as well, but she has never had much of a libido thanks to her damned… _premium mods_. Carnal pleasures simply do not interest her with the same intensity they interest everyone around her.

And she also wonders how many females he has rutted and allows it to bother her more than it should. She both does and does not want to think about it. He is free to do as he pleases and as he needs, and she should not be disappointed that they never advanced beyond friends together. She should be _thankful_ for all that he gave her. Some paths are simply not meant for to be. Hers leads somewhere lonely, but only because she will walk so far above everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the continuous onslaught of angst. I began writing the entire work when I wasn't exactly in a good place, and I'm not a very optimistic person.


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing Garrus does when he returns to Bridge is attempt contact with Lia so can arrange to meet up with her as soon as possible. Only after he composes and sends a message to her does he call his parents to come and pick him up. Lia’s reply is almost instant, and as usual it is very short and to the point. She has never liked using texts to do anything more than functionally communicate.

He needs to congratulate her on completing secondary academy. He needs to console her about the loss of her father, his second father – _Uncle Marek_. He needs to do all these things to cleanse himself from the filthiness and the ego he has acquired throughout boot camp. The explosive adolescent period is waning and he is beginning to have some more self-control, but it still bothers him.

“Welcome back my little baby boy!” _so happy to see you,_ Avita cries and throws her arms around him. He is already much taller than she is, almost matching his father for height. He laughs with her endures the flush that creeps up his neck, too relieved to be embarrassed by her ridiculous outburst. She clearly missed him.

“It’s good to see you, Garrus,” _my son,_ his father’s gravelly voice greets him as well, as he is smothered by his mother’s doting.

“Wow!” _look at my little one,_ Avita steps back and beholds him for a moment, “did you get taller Garrus?”

He can tell that she is joking with him.

“Actually, mom, you just got shorter,” _it hasn’t been that long_.

“That’s no way to talk to your mother,” _I’m not small,_ she throws a playful punch at this pauldron which he catches on reflex.

“Ooh!” she coos with playful amusement and pivots her head around to look at Castis, “look Castis our little boy is a badass!”

“Spirits mom,” _so embarrassing,_ he sighs in defeat. It seems like Jess’ mannerisms may have rubbed off on her more than he thought, and his time away from humans has really called attention to the difference in behavior.

“Did they treat you well, Garrus? Did you learn _anything_?” _did they waste your time?_ his father inquires as they start walking out of the massive, echoing spaceport which has mostly emptied out at this time of night.

“I can’t tell,” _it seems like they did,_ he responds honestly, “and not to make it sound like it was a terrible experience, because it mostly wasn’t, but I’m glad I won’t have to go back there.”

“Don’t we all know that feeling? Congratulations on graduating with flying marks. I’m proud of you,” _very much so. Spirits lift you._

Garrus does not reply – compliments are too hard to deal with. He tried just as hard as he usually does and it turned out to place him ahead of everyone else. He refrains from telling them about his plans to move forward with specialized training because it would just worry his mother and his sister. He is happy to see his parents and lucky to see his little sister, who leaves for academy very soon. She will also be attending Accen. Lia is still busy for a few days but they make plans and his heart races.

Aside from the brief meeting with the scribe to receive several additional chapters for his _seravim,_ and using what little pension he has earned to discreetly purchase a stripping mod, he spends his time loitering around at his parents’ home, too scared to try to go to the Shepard residence since Marek died, and too nervous he might have to be trapped in there with her. Just the two of them and their memories. And his guilt. And his desires. And her scent.

He is afraid to ask his parents or Solana about how Lia was during his time away. They have obviously been here to see her change and suffer quietly after Marek passed and yet, they have not mentioned her at all. When he brings up that he is going to see her they just say, in almost an apologetic manner, that it is good they are going to spend time together.

His parents give him their nicer skaivette, the Coballum, for the night. He has made reservations at a nice restaurant for an early dinner so they have plenty of time afterwards to catch up. He does not even need to knock on the door when he walks up because she opens it for him.

There she is.

She has changed so drastically since he last saw her. The power lies beneath her skin and her body has become the galaxy’s most beautiful weapon. He needs to look at all of her, but he does not want to be rude about it. The smile she gives him might be the most genuine expression of contentment he has seen out of her in so many years. He has a brief flash of recognition to the day he first met her twelve years ago and it allows him to see just how much she has lost. Her scent has graduated so many levels beyond pleasant that it causes him to pause and breathe for a moment. Mature, fragrant, sweet, warm.

Yet when she speaks it is with the cold voice of a dead woman. A beautiful, powerful, intelligent, dead woman. She sounds like she has nothing left to look forward to, and it terrifies him. He asks her to grab casual clothing as well because they will be walking around after they eat.

Dinner is wonderful; no one can beat the local food on Bridge. Turians seem to prefer punishing themselves with raw, flavorless meats and proteins from Palaven, so the rich, human-inspired flavors on Bridge are an intense relief. He becomes occupied with a constant supply of conversation about what they have both been up to for two years. They easily fall back into their usual cadences and mannerisms.

All of a sudden it is like nothing changed and he plunges directly into a life he once lived. They talk about her final projects and his various pet projects during academy. She makes snarky comments about how the education system is too slow and people have no idea what is going on and he riffs off that with his own opinions on boot camp training.

He loves these collaborative rants and tangents that they get into – it is an extremely cathartic experience to just be angry about anything and to have someone else there to be angry with. She is the only one who facilitates this experience because no turian will ever care to listen to his opinions about why and how things should be different.

He keeps quiet about where he will be going after his break and he hopes she does not bring it up. Lia deserves to know about his plans more than anyone else, but he knows how much it will hurt her and ultimately himself to admit to his own failure to come back to her and _stay_ with her.

They drive to the beach which is completely vacant at this time of the evening during this time of the year. Lia shocks him and changes out in the open, presenting him with a perfect view of just how stunning she has become in his absence; the muscles sweep gracefully beneath her skin. To be fair, however, it is not an uncommon practice for turians, who have no qualms about nudity. It would not be the first time she has seen him without clothing.

Once comfortable in their casual clothing they begin to meander along the beach and continue to talk. Their conversation heads deeper, losing some of the humor from before, a side effect of walking, thinking, and talking all at once. It is one of the quirky similarities between the turian and human mental processes.

“…I’m not a fan of relationships, Garrus,” how they even ended up at this topic eludes him, but she is providing some dangerous insight into herself. He feels like an intruder or a voyeur, “you think you know someone, for years even – and even worse you think you know yourself. But then how can you truly know? It seems everyone is trying as hard as they can to escape.”

He thinks for a moment before contributing his own opinions while attempting to keep himself from sounding guilty.

“They don’t like thinking… thinking requires energy and for most that is already too much,” _too little too late._

She laughs spitefully.

“Afraid of what they might find I guess? Whatever. It’s not like I would know,” she sighs. What is that supposed to mean? Her brows knit together in concentration and he scrutinizes her.

“What are you thinking about? You’re making the supercomputer-face again,” _tell me, please._

Lia chuckles softly like she barely registers his statement because she might be gearing up to say something really important.

“I’m just… I’m trying to determine what I should say next…”

What if she says it? His heart begins to hammer. What if she tells him exactly what he does and does not want to hear? If she says it what will he say? What would he do with himself? How would he be able to _stop_ himself?

“Two years felt like a long time, Garrus. It’s given me _too much_ time to think. I guess thinking is probably the wrong way, but… um… Garrus I-” she is cut short when her omni-tool buzzes with an incoming call. Her eyes go wide for a moment.

“Sorry, this might be important,” she mutters to him.

“Go for it,” _please,_ he offers. They are in no particular hurry. But his heart is now pounding its way into his throat.

She answers and her expression completely changes. “Good. Yes put me on there immediately. Thank you so much, I’m really looking forward to it. Goodbye.”

* * *

She thinks about her father every day, disappointed that he cannot share in her progress with her but happy that at least he did not waste away.

She smiles when she reads Garrus’ sudden message, pleasantly surprised and a little flattered that he remembers her at all. She is still a month from graduation, but only a couple days of classes remain before it is over. She has heard back from other universities, but not from Vancouver Academy yet. She expects the news some time during the upcoming week.

Lia coasts through her final project submissions, riding the emotional high provided by the promise of seeing Garrus again. He will definitely have something interesting to say because he always does. And just like she is glad he is back, she is also glad that he will not be around for very long. One of her worst nightmares is that he finds out about what she is really like and refuses to talk with her anymore.

Garrus said a “nice” dinner place, so her mother fusses about it and makes sure she wears the fanciest “casual” item they can find. She does not own anything that shows off a lot of skin because her wardrobe consists of practical and _comfortable_ clothing. Her mother manages to find the one item she has which covers the least amount of her compared to everything else. It seems rather uncharacteristic of her to suggest such a thing. Why does she even own this?

Garrus shows up ten minutes before he said he would, which she fully expected. She greets him at the door, eyeballing and admiring his much larger and well-developed form. He has reached the first major growth point for turians so he is massive, intimidating, predatory, and powerful. The once-noodly limbs have filled out into bundles of taut muscle fibers barely-contained by the thin formalwear he has on. He slices through the air with his poise and grace, and the tenor of his adolescent voice has melted into a rich, creamy baritone.

She is both relieved and anxious when Garrus asks her to also bring casual clothing for later so they can walk on the beach and catch up. If she is not careful she might say too much. When they finally get seated at their destination it feels like nothing has changed, and she loves it. Garrus may look different, but he is very much the same person she remembers. His snide and cynical sense of humor is the same and, if anything, his bullshit detector has only become stronger.

She enjoys interrogating him about his tech projects and learning how he solved design problems. It is the one thing that she has missed the most in her other friends, who seem to be too afraid to deep-dive into a topic for fun. She and Garrus co-complain about people who dragged them down and incidents that they had to put up with. Venting is another thing she has missed; her negative and angry personality makes the constant venting practically required for her to feel normal. No one cares to listen to it except Garrus.

After they agree to split the bill, he drives them to the beach to spend the rest of their night meandering. Lia strips down to her underwear, feeling relief having escaped from the confines of the formal clothing. She is presented with a wonderful view of Garrus as he changes into this casual garb beside her. His silvery plates catch the red light of the sunset beautifully as they shift and glide over one another in an oddly sensual manner. The rich cobalt markings that adorn his arms and chest proudly juxtapose the lighter plates underneath. She catches herself staring.

She has seen him naked before – hell, naked turians are quite a common sight at the beach on Bridge – but now there is such a physical contrast that it feels voyeuristic.

Once they start walking her inhibitions gradually begin to fall away, but she is aware of this mental process and does not allow herself to lose all pretense of control. She starts to gear up to tell him about how she felt and how she still feels, simulating all his possible responses and whether or not it would be worth it. She decides she should probably tell him, because she might never get the chance again and she might never feel this motivated to say it.

After some pondering she still cannot figure out how he will react if she tells him she loves him, and the uncertainty keeps stalling her out. Ultimately, no matter what she says, he will leave and go back to his duties because he has no choice. It is not like he could ever hope to uphold a relationship that did not exist and never would.

She _needs_ to say it, so she begins to descend into the hole she will be unable to escape should things go awry. Once she gets her mouth to render her thoughts into words she knows she will speak them all.

But then she gets a call from the Vancouver Academy’s administration office. She has been accepted and they are confirming her enrollment.

* * *

She shakes her head and smiles in disbelief. “Vancouver accepted me,” she says.

Garrus knows what that is. He did not know why she had applied to a _military academy._ He cannot not understand what caused her to want that. He almost blurts out his disbelief and disappointment. She was never supposed to lose her path the way he did. He needs to know what she was about to say!

_What?_ “Interesting choice. Congratulations,” _I don’t get it,_ is all he can think to say. Why did she do it?

“Hell yeah it’s interesting!” she’s excited, “they’ve got one of the best engineering programs in the galaxy. Project-based, everything is hands-on, no fucking _bullshit_.”

Garrus cannot remember a time when she has been this excited within the last five years. It is infectious and pretty soon she is going off about how great it will be, despite the fact that it is a _military_ academy. She is going to be surrounded by _humans,_ who she can hardly stand already. She says wants to able to have the strength to stand up for herself and others, but is that what she really wants? He should not have to tell her she already has it, but she would never believe him.

It is dark when they return home. They are both drunk with the contented feeling of the other’s sorely-missed company. Lia’s mother greets them at the door with a smile and asks him to step inside for a moment. Jess sends her daughter off so she can talk in private to Garrus. She quietly explains that Marek left behind some files he wanted Garrus to have – for his eyes only. There are also some possessions of Marek’s which have been placed in Garrus’ name, including an extremely high-quality, hand-crafted acoustic seven string guitar Garrus did not know Marek even had. Garrus has not played the guitar in months.

He receives the memory core and immediately stores its contents to his omni-tool before anything can happen to it. He thanks Lia’s mother and then finds Lia to say goodnight. She embraces him and kisses him amicably on the mandible. If he could blush he would.

His parents are away when he returns home. He trudges to his room, sits down in his nest, and begins browsing through the files. There is a video in there, the most recent file in the list, titled: “WatchFirst_GV”

Marek appears in the frame, speaking frankly into the camera in what Garrus clearly recognizes as the music studio in the Shepard household. Marek’s bass guitar is propped up in the background next to all the sound proofing and the wall-mounted studio monitors.

He talks about his memories of Garrus, from first impressions to watching him grow up and being able to play a part in his life. He thanks Garrus and by extension his parents and sister for becoming family.

Halfway through the video he begins detailing speaking rather cryptically.

_“Should the situation ever arise in which the Shepard family is unable to be contacted, meaning myself, my wife, or our daughter, I need you to send a message to omni-id listed in the encrypted file I’ve included in this folder. You will receive a code word reply which _must_ match the one in the file. Once you have it verified, send the compressed _qza_ file to the next listed omni-id. Be diligent, Garrus, because once you open that file it will corrupt itself and its contents will be unusable if you try to open it again. Attempts to copy or move the file will do the same. I’m counting on you, son. Do this for me. The cipher key is the Bridge-standard date in full, _in English,_ on which you and Lia snuck out to go watch the starships.”_

Garrus sucks in a breath and feels himself blushing – of course Marek figured out about their excursion. His parents probably noticed as well and never said anything. Marek finishes up by saying something that Garrus knows will haunt him forever.

_“Sorry about that, you will understand at some point. Anyway where was I… I’ve met a lot of her friends and they just don’t seem to reach her like you can. I don’t know how you do it bud, but you make her happy. No one else can do that. And if you and Lia ever do end up… you know… together, you have my blessing for what it’s worth. She looks up to you so much. You’ve had such a positive impact on her life, Garrus. Be good to her, and be strong for her – I fear she might not have enough strength and happiness left over for herself.”_

He can hardly fall asleep, and when he does he finds himself mired in a fever dream. When he wakes up the next morning he continues to contemplate what he heard and even re-watches the video just to make sure he did not hear it wrong. Now he feels obligated to do something about his relationship with Lia. He already knows she finds him attractive because he can smell it and he can hear her heart pick up when she looks in his direction; he can see the _infra_ blossoming as she warms up…

But how is he supposed to be there for her when she is just now about to leave for a military academy? When he is about leave for his own post-academy training? How is he supposed to stop himself from feeling the thirst of his own biological requirements? He does not want to have these things happen but he has no choice. Maybe, in time, she can forgive him for leaving her and they can work something out.

He cannot really think about anything else for the entire day. Those words “I fear she might not have enough happiness and strength left over for herself” have carried the seed of worry over from Marek to himself. He attributes it to his own self-diagnosed confirmation bias: he has always assumed Lia was unhappy, even with a family that loved her and friends that she laughed with. Some people are born sick, and they will do _anything_ to hide their burden an attempt to keep it away from others.

Garrus cannot truly empathize because he does not feel this way. He cannot put himself in her place, but he can understand why it is a vicious cycle. He imagines that she hates herself even more for having all these nice things and still feeling like no one wants her. He cannot say anything because even if he is correct, she would never admit to it. He wants to at least celebrate her acceptance to Vancouver Academy because she would never arrange it herself. He starts the ball rolling with his family and then hers.

They have their little get-together but it feels empty without Marek and Avita’s constant discussions about why “FTL is bullshit and should not even be possible in the first place.” The food is great, and Marek would have been proud. Though, he was never a picky eater and he just liked food in general.

Solana grills Lia about her last years of secondary school and her upcoming military academy. Lia seems “happy” talking with his sister, who has never stopped looking up to her. The night is finally over and he prepares himself to not see her for the next couple of days and then not see her for the next couple of years. And then not to see her for the rest of his life.

A distraction: the news is on for a moment and his father is watching just before joining his mother in their nest for the night. Garrus overhears something about a “missing colony of humans” on a rim world.

_Spirits above, worrisome,_ his father’s subharmonics are less than reassuring. Garrus does not pay it much attention, but he feels something in the distance. It is that feeling he gets sometimes that something is watching him but from really far away.

* * *

Lanaai settles into boot camp at Cipritine-Δ finding it a simple task to block out the noise and focus on her performance. They allow herself and Delian to pair up and room together as a courtesy, one which she greatly appreciates. Most of these other cadets are saturated with hormones and pheromones constantly, and it can sometimes be difficult to leave the barracks without tripping over a frenzied rutting pair.

If Delian wants anything from her then she does not notice, and he never smells of other females either. Other males make passes at her because she never smells of the rut… because she never ruts. A preliminary health evaluation made it abundantly clear that she is a “late-bloomer” and may have to wait another year until her body is ready to accept a male. She is perfectly fine with that. Perhaps Delian has a similar problem.

The excitement that grips her in the first week of training is quickly destroyed, however, by the pendulum… as it swings from fortune to misfortune so easily it seems.

_Come here,_ “Officer Acronus, walk with me for a moment,” _somber, indeed,_ her commanding officer says with a softer tone than normal.

_Yessir,_ she swallows nervously and does as she is commanded, keeping her place at his side… as an equal rather than a subordinate in this arrangement. The two of them exit the main courtyard and begin to roam the beautiful grounds of Cipritine-Δ while the commander remains silent. Eventually they reach the memorial site for one of the academy’s founding mothers. The commander pulls a datapad from one of the compartments on his armor, kneels, and then hands it to her.

She takes it and reads the plain wording:

– Year 09A3, Sec 04, Day 0A –

Hierarchy lieutenant 80C-1A121B, Telicos Acronus(α) [ΦΑ] was pronounced deceased following fatal trauma and burns inflicted by an equipment malfunction at 00:04:10:3Δ. This message is addressed to Hierarchy Officer 80C-1A121C, Lanaai Acronus(γ) [Ε6] presently attending Cipritine-Δ.

Lanaai, you are granted up to two periods of leave, at no penalty to your tier and under full protection of the Hierarchy, to grieve with your family over the loss of your father. The Hierarchy sends its condolences. May you have strength in this time of loss and mourning.

She reads the message several times and then looks up at the commander with her mandibles slackened and her lips parted. Her brows knit and then she reads the message again – this is not a joke.

_Really?_ “Is this real?” she asks, her throat dry.

_Yes,_ “They Hierarchy does _not_ deliver false news about death of family,” he replies flatly.

_Child!_ “Officer!” _spirits!_ she returns to reality when he grabs her shoulder and stops her from falling. She struggles to support her own weight with her legs, the very same pair that just propelled her through a ten kilometer warm-up run without any issue. She finds it challenging to breathe as it begins to dawn on her that she will never see her father again; that a life of struggle and toiling away was wasted in an instant by _someone else’s mistake._ She stares off into the void which has begun to move towards her.

She wants to die. And oh spirits her poor mother! Lanaai cannot even imagine how much strife she must be feeling as will right now. Aaleir’s second half ripped away; the man who bore the burden of poverty with her and stayed with her with unwavering loyalty through peril and hopelessness. There is a very high chance that her mother will not survive this… and Lanaai cannot bear to lose both parents – the only family she has ever known cleared from this plane of existence so swiftly.

_Let us continue,_ “Come, I will walk with you to the barracks,” _have strength,_ the commander says. What strength?

Delian watches her silently as she returns to their room and sheds her armor. She cannot muster the courage to meet his gaze and risk losing the final shreds of composure. The ticket provided to her shows a destination in Cipritine-44, which insults the memory of a man she never said goodbye to because she expected to see him again. She has no communications from her mother… probably because her mate was wearing their shared omni-tool when he… died.

She packs her duffel bag in the morning and heads out to catch her flight, still feeling completely numb as she leaves. Delian tracks her movements as she crams the few personal items she has into the bag, and she becomes increasingly irritated by his inaction.

_You going to stare all day?_ she gripes at him, “Bye.”

_Come back to me,_ “I will see you again, Lanaai. Whatever hurts now, we can fix it.”

She chokes back a keen and scurries out of the room before its too late.


	8. Chapter 8

Lia is truly excited and energized by the news of her acceptance. It seems the universe had better plans for her than her own, because it managed to stop her from making a huge mistake. The reminder that they are both destined for different things manages to sober her up enough to quash the urge. She goes ahead and breaks the news of the acceptance to Garrus, who pauses just long enough for her to discern his skepticism. She guesses that he is confused because he, like her mother, would not have expected her to want to go to a military academy. But it is perfect for her. If she tells it to herself enough it must be true.

Lia is committed to the challenge and explains her reasoning to him. He seems to come around. She can convince him that her decision making skills are somewhat sound. Mostly. She does not plan on staying in the military for longer than a two-year active commitment after she completes university. Then she will move on to get a master’s in aerospace engineering. She is looking forward to it. Garrus wishes her the best and leaves it at that, even though she can still sense his apprehension.

When they return, Lia finds it strange that her mother wants to speak with Garrus alone. She does not have to like it but she does wish to harshly judge either. She assumes that it is about her dad. It is quite unfortunate that Garrus was unable to have time to speak to Marek before he passed. Garrus comes back shortly and says stiffly says goodnight. She gives him a hug anyway, and kisses him lightly on the mandible.

She meanders through her nightly routine of brushing her teeth, using the restroom, showering off and then falling asleep thinking about what she would have done differently, regretting what she did and did not say during their evening. And also fantasizing about Garrus. And subsequently worrying about why her obsession with one man is so out of control.

The next day Lia informs her mother about her acceptance to Vancouver Academy and she witnesses the world’s most mixed reaction. Her mother is happy for her but disappointed that she is truly going through with attending a military academy. Lia receives the predictable “I think the military is too dangerous and that it invites the wrong kind of risks – you’ll get yourself killed” speech. Lia argues that the Alliance does not run dangerous-enough operations on Earth to ever put her in real danger. Tours of service are within council space and in an engineering role she may never even touch the ground.

She does not hear back from Garrus for a day, but as the sun sets he asks her if they would like to have a get together to celebrate her acceptance to university and graduation from secondary academy. They set a date for their shindig, although it will be missing her father’s famous barbecue. Garrus’ father will make something in his honor, without a doubt, and from his years of friendship with her father, Castis has picked up many human recipes like a true master.

She easily drops the motivation to tell Garrus how much she wishes they were together because she cannot remember what the point was anyway. He will only be here for another few days before leaving for what she assumes to be more training. She cannot imagine why she would see him again, so the sooner she can get over it the better. She would probably be unhappy in a relationship anyway, in which the constant fear of disappointing her significant other would haunt her every waking moment.

The company and the food are good and she has a decent time. Solana keeps her occupied with all sorts of questions about Vancouver Academy that she cannot answer and questions about her project finals from secondary academy. She happily rambles on about what she can. Solana has a lot of interesting things going on for herself but she is nothing like her brother in terms of personality. The pendulum swung most of the way towards Avita for her. She is twitchy, brilliant, and quite outgoing to contrast Garrus’ tranquil stoicism and brutal sarcasm. Solana plans to immediately follow her mother’s path once her mandatory military training is over.

After the gathering, Lia lacks the motivation to see Garrus anymore, but she does not want to tell him so. She just does not have the energy to lie to herself every time they spend time together so she takes the easy way out and simply cuts him off. She replies to his messages and communications over wire, but never face-to-face.

She has already left him on good terms and she does not want any more chances to ruin things. She cools off and presses everything down. Someday it might come back to haunt her, but it might be many, many more years before that happens. She looks forward to a relatively empty break before traveling to Earth to attend Vancouver Academy.

* * *

Garrus does not see her again before he leaves and wonders how that could be possible. She already finished school, yet she has not expressed interest in seeing him again. She still has martial arts training to worry about, and she is constantly wrapped up with her own personal projects. He leaves behind his guitar and the one he inherited from Marek, fearing for their health in an unpredictable environment. So with just a goodbye message to her and a feeling of emptiness, he leaves for advanced training, as promised.

They welcome Garrus; the academy has no name, only representatives and contacts who recruit for it. It does not take him very long to figure out that this academy is not one that accepts applications because they operate on a recruitment-based policy only. And, for once, Garrus finds the best of the best here.

* * *

Lanaai meets her mother at the home she would have shared with her mate. The neighborhood is clean and crisp, and formulaic in its layout. Everything here is beautiful and unmarred and she hates it. Her mother picks her up and holds her close, but the embrace is week and Lanaai can feel the life draining away from her mother. She is suffering more than any turian has ever suffered, surely.

_My child!_ “Spirits, thank you for coming to visit,” Aaleir’s voice is hoarse.

_I had to,_ “I had to come see you. Dad needs us to celebrate his life and remember him,” _you need to,_ she cannot help but sound nervous and desperate all at once. Where her mother comes from… they do not typically survive the death of a mate. Even though they can likely afford a treatment to “fix” that now that they have ascended in tier, her mother would probably refuse, finding such a suggestion to be a violation of her bond… the same one that is relentlessly yanking her into the fire that took her mate away.

_We will,_ “Let us. We can see the world he worked so hard to give us,” her mother gestures to the house behind them and Lanaai scowls. It feels no less insulting to his honor to revel in something that he cracked his plates to provide to them, without him here to enjoy it.

_Pardon!_ the voice of a stranger calls their attention. A cleanly-adorned couple with an infant hail them from down the walkway, “Have you just moved here?” _welcome,_ the male says as he approaches.

_Yes,_ “We have,” her mother croaks. The couple exchange a worried glance.

_Please, forgive me,_ “Are you… grieving?” the female asks quietly.

_Yes,_ her mother nods her head without speaking.

_I am sorry,_ “Unfortunate. Do you need family with you?” the male asks raising his brows and chirping, _because we can join you._

_Thank you, we need that,_ “That would be lovely, thank you,” Aaleir sighs and turns towards the house, _we _just_ arrived,_ “I haven’t had time to unpack yet, so we’re short on supplies.”

_Do not worry,_ “Once the word goes out to the block, we’ll bring everything you’ll need. We’ll see you in a few hours. Here’s my contact if you have any questions.”

Aaleir points to Lanaai and shakes her head, “Sorry, my omni-tool is… broken. Please send it to my daughter instead,” _no replacement on the way._

That last suggestion earns a nervous glance from the couple, who shift in place nervously. Either way, Lanaai has a new model provided by Cipritine-Δ, so she steps forward to accept the data transfer. Lanaai reads the contact and notices that they have just happened across the _administrator for their entire sedecimal,_ a former Executor of the Hierarchy with distinctions, Narasus Aurelius. Lanaai did not think she would ever see a tier this high in her life. The Executor glances over the contact information he received and scowls, turning to his mate who wears the same expression. The infant resting in Aurelius’ cowl squirms and chips.

_Thank you sir,_ she bows her head respectfully to the Executor.

_It’s our pleasure,_ “We understand your hardship…” _we really do,_ he shares another glance and an untranslatable sound with his mate, “everyone must have the chance to mourn and to celebrate a life… no matter where you come from or where your path leads,” _we will send updates._

The pair continue their walk while Lanaai and her mother turn and enter their house feeling equally numb.

* * *

On day one they are assigned to small squads for performance evaluations. He immediately makes friends with his mobility and his tech specialist, Kaepler Quo’an and Altay Sidonis respectively. Kaepler approaches everything the same way Garrus does, so negotiating plans with him is an easy task. He is faster than light and sweeps the mats with anyone who challenges him to spar, including Garrus. He is, without question, the most accomplished mobility cadet Garrus has encountered so far.

Altay, a rare φ, is reserved and nervous, but he is brilliant. He opens doors and clears the path, quite literally, with a deadly combination of tech and demolitions expertise that hints at a troubling past. Boot camps, no matter how prestigious, do not train their officers in a skillset as _illicit_ as Sidonis’.

But, despite his strong squad, he has been living the nightmare ever since returning to training. He never thought a few words could ever turn him around so hard. He begins to deny his body its demands as a result, and starts to feel the consequences of it. He even notices how it affects others: the females became confused around him because he smells different. In any condition his scent is neutral and he does not respond to advances at all, not even instinctively, even if he can recognize what they want.

Lia is so far inside his head and his body that it seems he might be broken permanently, and he made a grave mistake when he left her behind holding onto half of him. She probably thought she successfully cut herself off from him for both of their benefit, but he simply cannot let her go. She forgot that he cares about her too much to part ways like she did. He cannot blame her, because she does not know and it was his fault for letting her in to begin with. He is still able to power through training and improve his skills until it becomes unbearable. He plans to speak with doctor about suppressants.

_Sloppy,_ “Concentrate, Vakarian,” Sidonis teases him as he dances out of Garrus’ reach during a spar, _what’s wrong? I am genuinely concerned,_ The vocalization carries authenticity, unlike anyone else here. He blocks Sidonis’ next offensive maneuver and shoves him away, attempting to gain space and focus.

_I’m stressed,_ he replies.

_I noticed, brother,_ Sidonis steps back and crosses his arms over his slender figure, dipping his stance slightly, _what is the matter?_ “You’ve been getting worse all period.”

“Wow, thanks,” _I know,_ Garrus heads shakes his head and heads turns towards the edge of the mats to leave.

He feels Sidonis approach as the mat shifts under his footsteps. He smells… sweet. In the corner of his vision he sees Quo’an breathe in, cock his head, and then leave the room quietly.

“Listen, normally I wouldn’t… but… can I help?” _a rut?_ Sidonis asks, to Garrus’ surprise. He feels his guideplates twitch as the other turian’s pheromones begin to fill his nostrils.

Since he has not responded properly to any females since arriving here, he desperately needs the relief. He is willing to rut a φ even if he is a squadmate, and even if he is another _male._

“Yours or mine?” _location?_ he responds, finally smelling his own pheromones rise and dance with his partners’, deciding to pursue this opportunity. Upbringing on Bridge conditioned him to have a nearly unconditional preference for females, and to think of φ’s as _male,_ but any other turian would categorize them uniquely. _Everyone_ finds φ’s desirable. Ordinarily Garrus would not consider one of his own squadmates for a rut to keep any personal connection far from squad operation, but Sidonis is the only φ he has met since joining this academy. He trusts his friend to keep this to themselves after this is over.

Sidonis nods to the exit, _yours,_ he purrs.

The two enter Garrus’ personal living space and throw their waist wraps to the ground. Sidonis is not immediately submissive which lights a fire in Garrus’ core and floods his sheath with lubricant. He cannot just flip his partner around and pin him as he is used to with the females because the geometry of φ’s make it uncomfortable to mount from the rear. Garrus bares his teeth, lifts up the smaller male, and pins him against the wall while their guideplates tangle. Garrus’ tail emerges and surges forward once he finds purchase on the opening of Altay’s sheath.

He is halted abruptly by the strength of his partner’s narrower tail emerging and coiling around his. He growls and pushes forward, placing his hips behind the motion, and sinks into Sidonis’ sheath slowly. He can easily see why some θ’s exclusively hunt φ’s; the presence of a larger, much more textured tail than any female’s makes him incredibly tight inside. While he is attempting to rationalize the odd sensation, Sidonis pushes off the wall and pins him to the padding, using his weight to slam him hips down against Garrus’. The momentum forces the head of Sidonis’ tail between the lips of Garrus’ sheath and he nearly cries out. Sidonis flare his mandibles, rumbles ominously, and _pulls,_ yanking another several centimeters of Garrus’ tail from his sheath and drowning it inside his own.

_Spirits,_ he hears the quiet gasp from his partner as he straddles his waist, and holds himself still for a moment.

He is not used to having a partner return so much energy. Sidonis moves on top of him vigorously, drawing Garrus’ tail back and forth with his own, which stays tightly wound around it. Eventually Garrus regains enough composure to push back and flip the two of them over so he can drive downwards. He needed this relief, he just did not think he would find it here.

After some indeterminable period of time, Garrus ends up on his back again with Sidonis straddling his waist, as they were when they began. He drops his head back against the pads and sighs, sated. He really cannot ask his squadmates to rut if they are to be an effective team, but he is incredibly grateful that Sidonis gave his time to help resolve with what seemed to be an otherwise unsolvable problem. The pheromones clear and his partner unravels from him.

_Thank you, brother,_ “I can’t ask you in here again,” Garrus breathes out.

_I understand,_ “I’ve never responded to” _rutted_ “a squadmate. I always keep my squadmates out of me. I won’t ask what the problem is, and I won’t ask to accompany” _rut_ “you again,” Altay replies. Garrus flares his mandibles, finding camaraderie in the common ground and confidence knowing that they are both keeping their personal lives out of their operations, “but um…” _stripped plates and hide,_ “if that gets around you’ll be smothered by females. All the time.”

_Dammit,_ Garrus curses and blanches. He noticed that the his partner felt surprisingly comfortable compared to what he is used to, but he did not attribute it to his own stripped enamel and hide. Sidonis has a point, but thus far no female has ever noticed. He intends to keep in that way, but if Sidonis felt it then he does need to be careful. Turians are not exempt from passing around rumors.

Things return to normal for a while, which will give him enough time to come up with a longer-lasting solution. He expects that suppressants will be perfectly adequate, and he should eventually find enough equilibrium that his system will respond as it should. His friendship with Sidonis greatly improves following the encounter, however, which quickly extends to Quo’an. He spends a great deal of time in his off-hours chatting with the two and learning how to recover from a life lost and a connection severed.

He thinks of how Lia might be doing in her academy. He does not know about how the academy works, and the information he looks up on the extranet provides little to no help, but in general people who go there have vastly different experiences. He hopes that she is happy, though. He hopes that she makes something useful out of her time there. He half-hopes he does not see her again because if he does, she would have lost her way as well. She does not belong in the military; she belongs at a drawing board, commanding a team of engineers and mechanics, inventing the future.

The turians in this training program are all given opportunities to lead, but more importantly they are given opportunities to elect their own leaders. They have the freedom to choose their own instructors, mentors, and planners who suit their individualized training styles and strengths. The students are given full responsibility for their own improvement and so far this plan has proven to be very effective. And if this academy is designed to make everyone there as jaded as possible as quickly as possible then it succeeds brilliantly.

He gives up trying to hang on to his dream of becoming a starship designer. Everyone guiding him down this new path seems to agree that his skills operating a long-range precision rifle, his tactical, dangerously-pragmatic and detail-oriented leadership, and mastery of hand-to-hand combat techniques make him indispensable as a military asset. They would never let him leave the field at this point.

Garrus’ sense of sarcastic humor and tentative optimism is slowly growing into genuine hate of everything and everyone. This is not unique to him. Having grown up around humans and hearing about the proverbial pole that turians have up their asses – aside from the insane lack of understanding the phrase demonstrates about turian biology, this is where turians come to have the pole put up their ass. Even during the off-hours, in which “normal” turians typically become very casual and personable, these officers seem to string their duty along. Conversations are generally quite difficult to pursue, and sparring and rutting are obscenely cordial affairs. At the very least he has his squadmates to even it out.

To his surprise, when Garrus requests suppressants from the physician, he receives them, albeit begrudgingly. He was not quite sure what to expect, but they work like they are supposed to and, for the first time in since he started struggling, Garrus is able to focus on training even more clearly than before. He loves it. The weight frees itself from his shoulders and the strain in his bones nearly vanishes. Additionally, the supplements make it so he can properly respond to his partners and relieve stress effectively when he does have to rut. He is vaguely aware that at some point he will develop a dependency issue, so he makes the most of his time while the effects are potent.

In just two years moves up from Lieutenant to Commander. He is not the only one to do so, but he has more of a reputation and influence over his peers. When not leading his own team through simulations he is often elected to lead for other squads because his command is trusted. His mentors have granted him several layers of immunity from reprimand as an added shield, citing the unusually-high success rate of his unorthodox approaches as justification.

When he is not leading he is a popular pick for his operating prowess and tactical awareness. He never misses his targets and he fires about as fast as he can pull the trigger, beating out a deadly rhythm. After his first encounter with his own ego two years ago he has never let his guard down, but those who do not know him very well still find him egotistical when he discusses his capabilities. On the other hand, those who he regularly works with know that he has no ego; he is simply telling the truth. One glance at his performance metrics and anecdotal evidence from his squadmates provide simple confirmation of that.

Commander Intalus joins up with their training program as he wraps up his segment and speaks with Garrus. Intalus is proud of him for the progress he has clearly made, but disappointed that he seems to have lost the character he remembers. Garrus has nothing to offer for justification, but remains optimistic that the familiarity of Intalus’ presence will increase his performance in general.

The progress would be valuable to him were he not so empty on the inside. He stopped playing his music long ago, he stopped hoping for a future with Lia in it, he stopped hoping to follow in his mother’s footsteps – he stopped _hoping_ for things in general. It is the lack of hope that makes him brutally efficient and it is exactly why the academy is so quick to promote him. They have successfully converted him from a non-standard, hopeful, creative, naïve fledgling into a cold, heartless, prediction engine.

He supposes it is just meant to be this way; his life has worth to the Hierarchy and he feels that his growing apathy will better serve the defense of his brothers and sisters. At the very least Lia is probably doing something worthwhile with her time. The Alliance has fewer external problems to handle, so it is unlikely that she would be funneled into dangerous field missions throughout her military career. He hopes that Lia is still a dreamer. He _hopes_ that she has found the strength and happiness that her father seemed to think she lacked.

He will be put onto his first field mission in the upcoming weeks. He is allowed to choose his squad and his overseer: one of the veteran mentors who will act as a subordinate on this mission. It is a bit like having training wheels because this veteran can take over if things get rough. He does not expect to have issues, though.

* * *

The years on Earth are short and Lia makes every possible social sacrifice to focus on getting through university in three years instead of four. She finds out quickly that the military experience she was hoping to have begins much later in the program. From her secondary academy classes she has packed in a ton of pre-university class credits and crams in more during her first year, overloading her schedule until administration refuses to let her add more. She audits several lectures anyway so she can get a head-start on the material.

While most of her peers are seeking what she would deem “petty” physical desires – namely alcohol and sex – which seems to be the culture here, she remains dedicated to her projects, studies, and her physical well being. She has to spend a lot of time keeping her muscles honed because everything on Earth is just so light. The males here seem to be terrified of her, especially when she is taller than they are and can lift way more than they can. She finds them somewhat pitiful. Spirits, she must really have a sexual preference for turians.

Vancouver Academy also has some of the best tech labs around and they are surprisingly open with resource grants. With no prerequisite requirements for any class, she takes anything that she finds challenging despite warnings not to do so. With her lack of happiness eclipsed completely by work and projects, she is effectively “content.”

She quickly begins to regret her choice to attend military academy _with the Alliance_. Something is horribly wrong about political situation on Earth in general, but she cannot quite put her finger on it, so she begins to develop a sense of paranoia. The names “Horizon,” “Meridian,” and “Atlas” seem to pop up all over the place so she begins to look into what these companies actually _do._ All three seem to be industrial conglomerates and their websites contain next to no substance. Horizon and Meridian look poorly-translated into English as well, implying a non-English-speaking country of origin. Beyond that, the trail of information seems to fall off unusually quickly as if censored or carefully regulated.

Shortly after browsing through these sites she receives emails probing for interest in “joining” the “team” at “Atlas.” It motivates her to spend as little time possible with the Alliance and move back to Bridge or the Hierarchy for work following her mandatory service.

Lia learns how to fire a gun and how to make it behave the way she pleases. The balance control she has learned from the hybrid _Selren_ -Judo training on Bridge and the strength from maintaining a strict workout regimen true up her aim. She does not prefer the heavier ranged rifles or the lighter hand-cannons; a properly-weighted DMR gives her the greatest confidence, tightest precision, and surest accuracy.

At least they are progressive here at the academy. Once she destroys her first year of classes and her professors and superior officers begin to see what she could be capable of, she starts receiving additional privileges. When she proposes a weapon-modification project, she is granted a rifle, a mentor, and access to the shops. She plans out modifications: a stabilizer which will help her aim, a shock absorber to mitigate the recoil, a zero-point field manipulator to control the bleed from the mass effect acceleration etc… It is an independent study, and to her delight she can earn credit towards her graduation requirements with projects like these. She will have the opportunity to learn electronics engineering, computer science and embedded systems, and even get her hands dirty in the fabrication shops with the CNC machines. She is genuinely happy to have something interesting to work on, even if it is a _weapon._

In their Alliance training exercises she starts to notice that her squad mates become increasingly scarce until there are just two left with whom she regularly trains. Even though they never quite introduced themselves properly, she has come to know them well after running simulation after simulation with them under her leadership: Ashley Williams and Kaidan Alenko.

Both of these individuals are soldiers through and through: raised in military families to go into the military and eventually die young or raise their own military families so their children can die young. They make good complements to her leadership because they prove to be extremely reliable and loyal when “in the field.” She knows that she can expect them to accomplish tasks that she does not have the skillset for, namely biotic maneuvers. They also turn out to be valuable friends, taking their own initiative to invite her to lunch or dinner quite frequently.

No one is without their flaws, however. Kaidan is a bit mopey like she is, but he is not a master of his own facade so it tends to get in the way. His naturally quiet and smoky voice makes him hard to hear in general but also _in combat._ He is intelligent but only in “some ways:” his knowledge of physics and mathematics is surprisingly extensive, but his will is easily swayed by Alliance propaganda and he buys into it more than she finds healthy. She senses that speaking to him about it would end poorly for both of them, but it does not seem to affect his performance so she keeps her mouth shut. Lia is sure he would probably believe anything his superiors told him, even if it was obviously fallacious.

Ashley is loud, brash, loyal, incredibly strong, and often inebriated on the weekends. Lia tries to avoid ever talking about her religion and secretly wishes she would stop bringing it up, but still understands why she is religious. Her obsession with purple-prose literature also irks Lia, but she does not openly judge. Ashley is not a philosopher and does not pretend to be, she just enjoys it “for fun.” Sometimes Williams tastefully brings up a quote from Whitman; other times she comes across as pretentious.

But what really bothers Lia about Ashley is that she is quite xenophobic, especially against turians. Williams is apparently a disgraced name as a result of the 314 Events, but the conflict is over and most turians have few issues with humanity. Lia understands why there could be tension between humans here and a race none of them have ever met, but it seems ridiculous. Lia forces herself to remember that she is the weird one, having grown up around turians. Further discussion brings to light a massive discrepancy between what humanity on Earth knows about the conflicts and what the rest of the galaxy knows. She wonders how much the Alliance is keeping hidden and likewise, how much the Hierarchy covered up.

And yet, all of their flaws round the team out. Ashley loves playing devil’s advocate against all of Lia’s tactical choices which forces her to learn to justify everything. Lia learns how to raise her voice when she needs to, and stand up to confrontation rather than back away from it. Kaidan’s inability to be heard on the battlefield improves her ability to issue and interpret silent signals.

He shows interest in courting her, which is rather shocking consider she has presented herself as so cold to advances. She wants him to understand that she is not the kind of person anyone should form a romantic relationship with. It does not quite work, because she still has to turn down one request of his. She can see and hear the intent before he asks, and she suddenly understands exactly why nothing would have ever worked out between her and Garrus, or even her and Adam.

This time she has their perspective and that odd sense of foreboding when considering how short their relationship would be, given the divergence of their paths. She does not want to rob him of a proper woman who can truly be there for him. It does not hurt any less, but at least she _comprehends it_. After that, Kaidan never mentions it again. She guesses that he thought he would try even if he knew she would turn him away. Though they go right back to the way they were, she will remember that feeling. Perhaps leaving Garrus behind was the correct approach. She can still be grateful for everything that he was – and is – to her.

She finishes up her project and her commanding officer turns up to check out what she has accomplished. She is impressed with Lia’s work, even trying out the modified weapon herself and joking about having Lia make another one – or ten – for some of the other officers. It definitely puts her on the radar and she earns a promotion. It does not, however, protect her from the unrelenting and ruthless training regimen that her superiors extrude her through; they know where she comes from and they want to break her. Some present a reserved attitude and employ euphemisms to skirt around admitting it and others tell her outright that they do not approve of her “undeserved advantages.”

Either way, she endures it because living through someone else’s idea of hell provides a ready and welcome distraction from her own.

She does her best to be “normal” around others, but once any sort of daily obligations are over she shuts out as much as possible. It is selfish, yes, but she is not hurting anyone. She does not have any obligations to involve herself with others to a greater extent than is absolutely necessary. She keeps up her routines, which provide the easiest way for her to stay distracted from her fears and her sadness. It keeps her feeling productive because it is not like her personality will ever do her any favors.

She does not return to Bridge between years because the trip is not quite worth it, despite her general unease with Vancouver. Fortunately, she lands internships during the summers working at local engineering firms who have heard about her from her superiors and professors. These experiences are a welcome relief from the artificial rigor of university and she feels like she has something to offer. She feels valued for the short breaks between school years.

The highlight of her university experience is the apprenticeship at Vircon Dynamics’ Terra branch, which, unfortunately, introduces some additional regrets into her life. The people she works with are brilliant and driven, unlike most of her college acquaintances who are trying their best to just survive training and accept placement into the Alliance.

By the end of the five month extended work period she manages to cultivate the beginnings of a major design effort to create a new line of mainsail thrusters. Her work is mostly aesthetic: she is responsible for the central fairings, which happen to be the most prominent external surface. If they keep her design intact, someday her work will be front-and-center for all to admire. She feels proud of her accomplishment and of herself for the first time since she left Garrus behind. This can work for her; she realizes that it is possible to feel happy for herself.

The put her name on record and throw her a little going-away party when she has to return to school at the end of her three-month internship there. She bids goodbye to her colleagues, some of whom she would consider her friends, fully-expecting to see them again once she finishes her obligations to the Alliance.

The new school year quickly rips down the little happiness she found during her internship. She feels too far down one path to pursue another, and her commitment to the Alliance means she must complete her entire period of service after university. At the very least, she has something to potentially look forward to if she decides to re-apply after serving her two year tour.

All her time evaporates as she barrels through her courses. Her nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty first birthdays are all celebrated in the company of a cold night in a small apartment, a mountain of tools, materials, machines, and research documents; not a single other person. Her mother calls less-frequently, but Lia finds solace in the knowledge that her mother is holding together. Sometimes she receives updates from the Vakarians in the form of letters – meant to be read and understood rather than discussed.

Graduation arrives and her mother and Garrus’ parents come out to visit her. Lia is not quite as close with the Vakarians anymore, but she greatly appreciates their time. Turians on Earth are exceptionally rare and she really does feel grateful for their presence here, especially when they are the _only_ turians in attendance, and likely the only turians for twenty kilometers. She receives high honors for her academic achievements which means very little to her or anyone else, it is simply a marking on her diploma which no one will ever see.

An additional military ceremony wastes even more of her time with the bottomless supply of propaganda and not-so-subtle political agenda of their speaker. The mention of “Atlas” at least once sets her skin crawling with unease. Lia is quite happy that her parents and the Vakarians do not attend because the man at the podium really is a racist piece of shit. Lia receives little recognition despite her position because she turned down all opportunities to speak publicly. The administration must have made certain to keep her name out of mention as a punishment. Kaidan even grouses about it briefly before thanking her for making his experience here tolerable.

Following the ceremony, a tall, dark-skinned individual approaches her and introduces himself as “Anderson.” Lia notes the “captain” ranking indicated by his uniform and snaps to attention. He calms her down and dismisses the formalities. He wishes to discuss an opportunity with her going forward into her period of active service.

They meet at one of the on-campus coffee shops after he follows up with an e-message, then they take a walk around campus.

“I am interested in recruiting you to an advanced experimental training program.”

“…Alright” she replies waiting for him to continue.

“An alternative to the N7 super-soldier program. We are trying something new and I wants to help you realize your full potential,” he sounds completely serious about this, so he must genuinely think she is a proper candidate.

Lia does not tell him that her full potential is not to be a soldier, and that she seriously doubts the nature of anything “innovative” out of the Alliance military, but she rolls with it anyway.

“You really think I make N7 material?” she raises a brow and smiles crookedly.

“Maybe you don’t see what I do. I’m old, child, I know what makes a good soldier,” he replies, shooting down her attempt at humor. She has no idea what he could be talking about. She hardly matches the profile she would expect of someone entering the N7 program.

“Well then, no. I don’t have time spend seven years in more specialized training to become someone’s idea of a weapon,” she scowls.

“I expected you might say that, which is why we are offering to let you spend your mandatory service period in this new program, and then make up your mind later. If you wish to return here after that, then I will personally make sure you have a ticket.”

So really it means more sponsored training and the ability to continue to work on advanced projects with skilled people between drills.

“Is there more? What about this program is so special that it is being considered over the ‘legendary’ N7-”

“That is why,” he cuts her off, “you just explained the very reason. The N7 program is _infamous,_ Shepard. The questionable ethics of the N7 program are remnants of a worried period, and we are attempting to distance themselves from that reputation.”

“So making super-weapons some other way is justifiable as long as it’s named something else,” she blurts before she can stop herself. Anderson sighs. He looks exhausted.

“Look, this program is a precursor to major changes in specialized training. We are bringing in specialists from all over the galaxy to help our people become the best they can be and give humanity a sound standing in the galactic community. We even have turian instructors on board with this.”

“Wow,” she stops and looks at him like he has several extra heads, “who in spirit’s name told you to you tell me _that?_ ”

“Well… you’re considering it now, are you not?”

She keeps her mouth shut. She can tell he is leaving out information on purpose but it seems like a touchy subject for him personally. If what he says is true then she really does want to see what it is like. Shepard is amused by the prospect and it sounds too good to be true.

“You said I can back out?”

“I said you can choose to join this program, or proceed with service as you would have.”

“I have friends at Vircon,” she replies flatly.

“Like I said, two years; then you decide.”

“Listen, I do not want to be shut inside a suit of armor and expected to turn into a killing machine like you already do to your N7’s”

Anderson glares at her, so she eases up. He took that far more personally than she expected.

“Alright I’ll do it. Two years,” she repeats. No matter what, this will be a better use of her time than two years of glorified patrol duty.

“Welcome aboard, Shepard,” he shakes her hand, “I will keep you updated.”

Despite her best efforts, Shepard cannot keep up contact with her mother. Like Jess, Lia becomes too busy and bogged-down with work as she heads into the experimental training program. Neither of them have the time anymore to call as their schedules separate and fray. She also does not really want her mother to know about it because it would make her unnecessarily worried. In the meantime, Williams and Alenko are also recruited to this program and they both accept, to Lia’s surprise. Neither seemed amenable to the idea of a program involving so much alien influence.

They both consider backing out when they learn that the Alliance requires them to take performance-enhancing gene mods in order reach a baseline considered “acceptable” by the turian contingency here. In their own ways, both are bitter about it and both loathe the idea that they have to modify who they are in order to appease their superiors in the Alliance and in the Hierarchy. Shepard says nothing as the Alliance passes her over entirely, already quite aware of her condition. She would rather keep her rapport with her squadmates than offer her perspective on why she thinks the modding is acceptable; why it is _required._ Williams and Alenko are both intelligent, but they are just as faithful and she knows it would be impossible to change their beliefs.

Shepard remains as determined as ever to achieve as greatly as possible with maximum efficiency. She makes the same sacrifices she always does, hiding the same sadness she has always hidden, and puts herself into challenges to become distracted by them. The military training here is more like boot camp than she expected. Still, though, at some point, humans thought it might be a better idea to improve the quality of housing and facilities. She does not know what turian military academies are like so she does not know how much this program “borrows.” At the very least, she is glad they have an actual martial arts program and lucky that she finds it to be familiar with some new techniques mixed in. It makes up for the shitty exercises.

According to hearsay – conversations from older men and women who have joined the program after several years with the Alliance – it is much cleaner and much less “work for the sake of work” than it used to be. Turians do not train their soldiers to look down on their subordinates and they do not foster feelings of superiority by inflicting exorbitant punishments. Historically, the best way to avoid having issues with power hunger was to eliminate the reasons for it.

She was half expecting to crawl through mud and razor wire just because she was told to, for no particular reason; to build “character” and “harden her up” the way her superiors at Vancouver claimed. She ends up doing all of those things, but they are always due to the circumstances of simulated field work. When it rains, she ends up crawling through mud to avoid gunfire. When she infiltrates she crawls through razor wire to break past the enemy’s perimeter. She is molded by real-world training examples. There are no artificially-constructed obstacle courses here.

Their physical exercises are still grueling, but she finds them acceptable. Her instructors quickly figure out that her tolerance for physical exertion is much higher than her peers’ and begin to push her. Once again she is the alien among them.

It consumes her time, but they have teams of people dedicated to evaluating every incoming officer both before and during the first weeks of this program. They are placed into separate training tracks which emphasize their strengths. Shepard, and by extension Alenko and Williams, are grouped together based on their history as an effective team despite the fact that she rarely trains with them.

Shepard is put into a tech and medium-range combat focused course. Given her preference for high-precision medium-range engagement, they have her train to act as what turians call “force.” Long range, as in snipers, are known as “operation,” close range officers are known as “mobility,” and medium range suppressing officers are known as “cover.” She is _force_ : medium to short range assault.

Much to William’s chagrin, their team is fast-tracked into turian-led direction _because of_ Shepard’s background. Unsurprisingly, Shepard feels more comfortable around their turian instructor than the other humans. Williams is verbally bitter about it and confronts Shepard with her disdain only to be dismissed with the same apathy she usually encounters; Williams _did_ sign up for this program knowing that turians would be involved at some point and that she can opt into a different squad whenever she pleases. Shepard watches her friend process the idea that Shepard is ready to leave her behind if she cannot keep up, as if it never quite occurred to her. Williams never mentions it again, but their relationship seems permanently altered thereafter.

Kato Avalenus, her assigned mentor, is an attractive middle-aged turian who grew up on a colony and served many years as a “diplomatic guard.” Before that he completed advanced training where he oversaw his fair share of successful ground operations. She is quite sure that his involvement with this program is duplicitous in nature – for that matter, the heavy involvement of the turians in the orchestration of this entire program seems duplicitous in general – but he really does know his techniques. Either way, she could not care less what kinds of “secrets” he might be stealing and taking back to the Hierarchy. The Alliance is probably attempting to glean information from their off-world guests as well.

He pushes them. Most importantly, he understands how just hard to push them to keep them moving forward while giving them time to breathe. Shepard manages to get into contact with him outside standard hours to continue to improve, during which she becomes uncharacteristically focused on mastering her weapon and her body. She puts aside her dreams for now so that someday she will be able to appreciate them and give them proper treatment.

Avalenus does not take very long to figure out that she was colony child herself. She smells different and looks a little different than the Earth-native humans around here. She even sounds different. He notices that she understands too much of what he says under his breath because she is fluent in the turian standardized _Praexus_ language. Usually when they find out it is like a taboo. Colony kids are not necessarily well-liked on Earth or Palaven because they are seen as “traitors” of a sort… but not to him.

Her instructor does not seem to care, but it does cause a change his behavior. He treats her differently than he treats Williams and Alenko, investing more in her development. He speaks to her exclusively in _Praexus_ because he knows he can, and it is more efficient than English in most cases. Shepard notices a significant shift in her abilities once he starts to donate the extra time. She sets off on her journey to leave behind who she was entirely in order to find purpose elsewhere. She set out to prove her worth, and now she has that chance.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a warning: read through this knowing that at any point there may be graphic depictions which some might find disturbing.

Slowly, strangers begin to arrive at their small house, which is still several times larger than their apartment on Kodara, bearing all manners of food and drink. Lanaai helps her mother greet them and accept the gifts of their presence here. Everyone who walks through the door has some meaning to the Hierarchy: generals, admirals, commanders, executors… gods and goddesses step across the threshold, and yet, they are donating their time and their resources to support their sisters today. Lanaai and her mother are both unspeakably grateful for it. Lanaai does not learn names because most of their guests remain silent out of respect for the vigil, but she will remember their faces forever.

Several of these individuals, all of whom are much older than the rest, arrive alone and take special care with her mother; they must have lost their other halves as well and understand what her mother is going through. It does not assuage her fears for her mother’s health, however, and she is worried that despite all the camaraderie and warmth here, her mother’s heart is icing over. The shadow of doubt that it casts over Lanaai’s thoughts keeps her upset the entire evening, despite the truly amazing food she has a chance to enjoy and all the company that stands and bows before her father: a “nobody” to everyone, and everything to “no one.”

After several hours of quiet discussion and selling their family’s vastly-inferior story to these gods, the vigil period ends and their guests begin to file out. Lanaai receives contact information from most of them, and one of the females here even presents her mother with a brand-minted omni-tool which she attempts to reject. The other woman places the omni-tool, a pricey, high-quality model still in its case, on the table by their door as she leaves and casts a worried glance towards the two of them.

Executor Aurelius stops at her mother’s side as he and his mater prepare to leave. He wraps her mother into an embrace and speaks softly to her for a moment before releasing her. His mate does the same before the two approach Lanaai.

_Have strength,_ “I know a lot about your father. He was a great and kind man. May his love for you and your mother stay forever within your hearts and minds,” _he smiles from there. Spirits hold him._ “If you need anything,” _within reason,_ “you have our contact information. Until we see you again, Lanaai,” _we will._

Whatever “fortune” they have found with their acquaintances is short-lived… just like her mother. Lanaai allows her to sleep-in the following day, but notes an odd scent coming from the master suite after no sign of life for half a cycle. Without thinking about it she calls paramedics who arrive within minutes and begin to interrogate her while they go and pull the lifeless body of her mother from the nest.

_I didn’t want to see her,_ “I just… knew. I was scared,” _I wanted to deny the truth,_ she tells the reconnaissance officer who arrived with the parameds. The older woman jots down some notes on her omni-tool and sighs.

_Have strength, my child,_ the woman places her hands on Lanaai’s shoulders and leaves her. Her job is clearly a difficult one.

Lanaai knew it would happen and she thought she would be devastated, but she is already at the bottom of whichever pit fate threw her down; at least she cannot go lower. Her mother is with her father now, and knowing that her pain is gone is a minor comfort, but now she is alone in this world… the last living Acronus. She could disappear and no one would notice or care.

Executor Aurelius is standing outside talking with the head agent. He rushes to her when he spots her walking from the house.

_Spirits hold you child!_ “Spirits above…” he grabs her shoulders and seems to think better of throwing any more pity in her direction, “we didn’t think she would follow so soon. I’m sorry,” _and spirits take her._ “We can call them back; hold another vigil for her.”

_Don’t,_ she thrums flatly, “Yesterday was hers as much as it was dad’s. It’s over,” _I have to go._

_Would you care to stay the night?_ “You can find safety in our abode-”

_Thank you, sir,_ “No thank you, sir. I’m going to stay one more night in their… house” _tomb_ “and then I’ll be going.”

_Grieve,_ “You should take the time to exhale your grief, child,” he begins to inflect a commanding tone onto his words. Lanaai does not want to be disrespectful to the man that just yesterday dropped everything and summoned nearly fifty complete strangers to partake in a vigil for a “nobody,” but she also does not know how to explain to him that there is no grief or happiness anymore… only a mission. There is no way he knows how she grew up and that there is no time to let these emotions take root. She is broken by the loss of her parents, but she can still function. She never had a proper family to grieve with anyway.

_I respectfully decline,_ “Goodbye, Executor,” she nods and returns to the house. She advances her ticket back to Cipritine-Δ and goes about spending the rest of her day packing and preparing to leave. The Hierarchy can send a lawyer and a specialist to deal with this, and the military academy will likely make someone available to communicate with her. In the final hours of the cycle she beats the spirits out of the punching bags to loose her anger and tire herself out.

The next day she takes the shuttle back to Cipritine-Δ without looking back.

* * *

Garrus deploys into real-world work: all infiltration ops where they have no choice but to break in and shoot people. They have no issues with these because everyone on his team has been trained extensively to be killing machines. They are designed to kill people and follow orders, and while it seems like a waste of his potential, he is gifted. Eventually, Intalus begins to bring in non-turian instructors to teach them new techniques, tech, tactics, and anything else combat-related to allow them to _kill more._

Their first field mission is a “success”; nothing complicated. Garrus makes sure they do not overlook any details. The mission is to preform reconnaissance on a supposedly-derelict batarian outpost and determine if there is any nefarious activity. The output had been used as a waystation for human trafficking before turian Blackwatch busted in there and wrecked their operation earlier that year, but that does not mean it remained permanently out of commission.

They drop in from orbit and scout the exterior of the base thoroughly before closing in. No activity. They proceed into the derelict structure which is incredibly easy considering they have no resistance, and the previous break-in left them entry-points. That no attempts have been made to repair the outpost indicates no presence of life here.

_Spirits,_ he chokes when they finally enter the first cell block. Disfigured human corpses and body parts are strewn about the cells and the halls. The stench is horrific, and begins to make its way through the filtration system to haunt his olfactors. Most of the bodies have been eaten away by bacteria, but those that remain mostly intact show signs of intense torture: crudely-severed limbs, cuts and gashes, tattered, mottled skin covered with matte crimson and grotesque shades of yellow, green, brown. Humans are fragile.

Sidonis and Quo’an pause and hack as well. Intalus stops his push and judges them over from underneath his helm. He says nothing while he waits.

_Onward,_ comes the quiet command after several moments of regaining composure. They encounter batarian bodies after a while, riddled with bullet holes, deformed predictably by gunfire and direct confrontation with turian mobility. Bits and pieces of them are up in the rafters where the mobility launched them. Garrus traces shining holes in the thin metal walls to the gore of several half-vaporized bodies; the sign of an operator using an illegally-boosted linear rifle. They verify that there is truly no more activity here and then rig the outpost for destruction. He supposes the previous team was simply there to shut down the operation and leave as quickly as possible; perhaps the Hierarchy hoped that the slavers would eventually return so they could double-down.

Garrus feels sick for several cycles following this mission. He knows this is kind of thing is common and that he needs to get used to seeing this, but there is the tiniest suggestion in the back of his mind. _You will find her there. She will be irreparable, perhaps, ruined. What would you become, then?_ There were young men and women in there who had a future ripped away from them. There were _children._ His squadmates are not too happy with it either.

Intalus is not affected in the slightest. The older turian is many years their senior, and he has lived with the trauma long enough that he has learned how to cope with it. He debriefs them about how they performed: he is impressed with their ability to muscle-through their first atrocity without losing their composure.

Garrus becomes closer with his squadmates after this experience as they share . They pick up a few new members as the squads assignments shift around. Kaepler and Altay remain with him. They gain a pilot, Ti Nissus, another mobility, Tara Focos, and a massive cover operator, Geran Lo’kian. These are the individuals who stick with him and vouch for his leadership. Garrus makes sure to mix up roles as well, testing how his squad reacts to different pressures. They have a lot of time between missions. The Hierarchy does not delegate low-level missions very quickly, so they spend their down time training and conditioning as a team.

He knows he is going to have to suffer for his success at some point, but until then he makes sure every mission is perfectly planned. But he cannot account for everything. One of their infiltration missions goes awry when he fails to predict the arrival of biotic adversaries. They rail on his team, causing both of his mobility units to suffer major injuries. He calls for extraction before they complete their task, choosing to save their lives despite their protests as they experience the full force a true, turian instinct to martyr themselves for the good of their brethren. Colloquially this is called “ _the pull_ ” and only those at the threshold of the spirits’ household feel it.

Intalus does not approve of his actions – not because he could not predict the enemy, but because he had refused to accomplish his objective in favor of saving his team. It is expected that turians suffer casualties to accomplish their goal in one pass, otherwise the enemy may have time to recover and strike again. Garrus says nothing in reply, knowing any retort or defense will be met with more reprimand.

His first failure weighs heavily on his shoulders. It does not seem to matter that his recovering squadmates thank him for getting them out alive after _the pull_ dies down; for not leaving them there to die alone. In these moments of reflection he finds himself wondering how Lia is doing and hoping that she has not had to see what he has to. Is she alone?

He tries to learn from each one of his failures, and he is the primary reason their squad is the most active in the academy and earning rank faster than the others. They have all gained some infamy as a result and the social landscape becomes mixed. It makes finding a rut very easy, because when he takes to the mats females and φ’s practically flock around him, but it makes genuine friendship difficult. Turians are just as envious as any other sapient species, no matter how much they attempt to mask it.

He starts to hear the colloquialism _“titan”_ floating around with the greener recruits and it bothers him to no end. The word is _Novataetran_ , his father’s native language, for “rhythm.” He is not sure whether or not to feel offended by the term, but it does not suit him. Supposedly _“titan”_ is his nickname after the academy decided they would start showing helmet cam footage from his squad’s successful missions to recent inductees. To his infinite ire, the nickname refuses to die despite how corny it is. After all, he is just doing his job. He would strangle the individual who started this, but its popularity renders any reaction to it worthless.

His career of successes and minimal losses continues steadily upwards. By the end of his three year training period he and his squad is well-known around the academy and even some of the Special Forces officers who occasionally come by to help with mentorship and training. His family has neither seen nor heard anything from him, the music in his heart died long ago, and his hopes to make the universe a better place by creating things with his hands fizzled out. He is perfect. He is exactly what they want. He graduates as a Commander VII of the Hierarchy with distinctions, class λ, tier 1Ε.

Within weeks, rumors begin to crop up about another human colony completely drained of its populace in mere days. Sidonis shows him the transcript he scavenged which includes some chilling details of the aftermath, namely that there were no signs that people wanted to leave and no signs of struggle… except for a handful of mutilated corpses of domesticated canid and vanerid type household pets. He remembers the last incident many years ago and the way his father seemed so distraught by the news. The colonists were never recovered. This recent incident is identical.

He is given command of a tiny little ship in which he, his squad, and a Blackwatch team can go gallivanting around performing reconnaissance ops for the Hierarchy. Their first task is to investigate the most recent vanished colony. The Primarch is not stupid: if something on this scale is attacking smaller human colonies there is no reason the same thing could not prey on a turian colony next, whatever it is. A force that steals a colony like that could easily make short work of a well-defended turian rim-colony.

Garrus can already tell he is going follow a bloody path down into a dark place. The scale of vanishing colonies, where thousands of people suddenly cease to exist, is unlike anything anyone has experienced in recent years; there are simply no analogs for it. Even in war, there are limits and explanations and _evidence_. In war, there are still rules and considerations. Whatever is causing those colonies to vanish is simply uninterested in fighting a war… it may as well be _genocide_.

* * *

She heard that infantry who advance quickly through ranks are a myth, but in this program everyone advances quickly or they leave. The entire operation is designed to get everyone moving as quickly as possible down their path and it seems to be working.

Alenko works constantly with an asari biotics mentor who has helped him overcome most of the headache issues. The woman is terrifying because she is so peaceful, hiding some unknowable energy potential, but Alenko’s biotic control has improved significantly as a result. When they run simulations she has him using weapons far less of the time because his biotics have become so precise and so powerful that weaponry only weighs him down.

Williams is stuck working with a grizzled old human female who had first-hand experience with first-contact conflict and tries to hammer it into Ashley’s head that allies are allies and enemies are enemies regardless of appearance. Shepard knows that might not be possible for a woman who grew up in a family based on indoctrination of multiple forms: military, religion, xenophobia. Her mind has been sculpted. It can slightly adjusted in small chunks, but it cannot be re-shaped.

Lia convinces Avalenus to allow her to continue to train her hand-to-hand skills even though it is not her main focus, to which he agrees. He has her work with turian techniques which rely heavily on joint-locks and movement. Turians cannot use their own body weight to pin an opponent because they are extremely light. They are so disproportionately strong that they can easily lift the opponent away from themselves, even in awkward positions. Instead, they rely on joint locks to defeat that strength and render their opponent physically incapable of moving.

It finally dawns just how strong and fast turians can be when he demonstrates a strike he would like her to work on.

“This strike is about building up tension and pushing all of your energy through the heels of the palms,” Avalenus explains as he flexes his hands into a flattened configuration, forcing the heels of his palms forward.

“But more so than physical tension, it is about mental tension. Now, the naïve officer scoffs at this and does not believe it – yet when he executes the motion he fails to deliver the full force of the strike. The master performs the same motion, yet he shatters the target…” Avalenus turns to a dummy covered by a ceramic plate vest. He pauses for a moment. Lia is fixated on the way he seems to pull in the universe around him before whipping forward with a growl. The plating on the dummy explodes and its body goes soaring horizontally across the room.

The strike he delivers would completely obliterate a human rib cage. In fact, no specie except a krogan, elcor, or another turian would survive it. She would shatter her arms attempting to apply the same force. A god is in the room with her.

“Maybe I will hit that hard the day I wake up a turian, Kato,” she frowns.

“You might not be able to break ceramic, but unless you master the tension behind this technique, it doesn’t matter _what_ you wake up as, Shepard. And you should know… you already _do_ wake up as a turian. So you have something to work towards. Let us start practicing.”

So she understands why there is some apprehension from him when handling her. When he spars with the other turian instructors, she can barely keep track of them. She would never stand a chance without some performance stims or additional gene mods. She heard that some of the N7 graduates can hold their own against an _untrained_ turian. Humans here are certainly delusional courtesy of their carefully-maintained, largely human-biased perspective of the galaxy around them.

But she does gain from it, learning never to hesitate once the opponent is on the defensive, and never to let the opponent escape. If the opponent is disoriented then the closer the better. The less time between actions, the less time the opponent had to recuperate. It begins to have devastating effects when she spars with her peers.

Learning to fight from a turian quickly clears away all the common rumors that often crop up with the human officers: that turians are less flexible, or that they are easy to distract, or that they are not as light on their feet etc… She begins to find it impossible to identify how turians are in any way physically inferior to humans with some very odd exceptions that would rarely matter, at least in a combat scenario.

Off the books, Avalenus provides her with access to unification war footage as part of her studies in tactics. The last war the turians fought had been nearly three hundred years prior, and was nothing like recent human wars: turians fought each other in controlled battles. Since there are no turian civilians, cities are well-defended and always have been. Battles were almost exclusively fought on non-populated courses, and on rare occasions, without even using lethal force.

That does mean, however, that they are in any way “unqualified” to wage war. They know everything from guerrilla warfare to large-scale, organized mobilizations. The footage makes her uncomfortable because it thoroughly introduces her to the reality that, had the first contact conflict erupted into an all-out war, humanity would have been completely crushed at any confrontation. Avalenus mentions in passing that a single task force was assigned to quell the human push. _Just one._ The grand fleet is comprised of 200 active task forces. Nine or ten task forces would be enough invade earth and subjugate its entire populace.

It is a touchy topic she has debated with Alenko and Williams, but she does have a bias. Watching helmet cam footage of turian snipers – “operators” – from the perspective of forward forces is terrifying. A properly-trained, master operator never stops firing and they never miss their mark. They develop a rhythm in which every beat represents at least one kill.

Occasionally they have her work on tech projects, but with decreasing frequency. She is assigned to leadership roles more and more because her instructors find her zero-bullshit-tolerance policy to suit the job description well. She finds a niche for her brand of being discontent with just about everything. Her reluctance to spend any effort on her relationships with friends and acquaintances past what is necessary makes it simpler for her focus on a task.

She does not feel much, but that is much better than struggling to keep her head up. Avalenus changed something about her; Vircon can wait while she continues along this path. She feels valued and respected here, and she wants to continue to chase that dream.

* * *

For all the trouble her parents went through to protect her from reality and place her here, she inherits their meager life savings of thirty-thousand odd credits. The payout from the company responsible for the faulty component which lead to the explosion is just obscenely, ridiculously high. The quantity transferred to her accounts just taunts her as the minimum amount required to forget about the lives they destroyed.

Seven _million_ credits to shut up and move on with her life. Spirits, she will never have a use for this!

Delian seems surprised to see her after returning just three cycles after she departed.

_You’re back, why?_ “I thought you were going to take the entire two periods?”

The blank stare Lanaai offers in response may or may not answer his question, but he does not press for details. Quietly, he helps her unpack her things and settle back in here. The room is absolutely the same as it was when she left it; no traces of foreign bodies here to make her wonder if Delian is receiving the attention he deserves… or _needs._ She would help if him if she was ready. Perhaps she needs to see the doctor again and ask if anything can be done to her to speed things along.

Recovery is slow, but it comes in waves. The life they left on Kodara was so volatile that she must have been subconsciously prepared to lose them long before she actually did. Lanaai does not become any more extroverted in academy so she remains without many acquaintances, but she is grateful to those she has. She is even more grateful to Delian, who has never left her side and who has supported her just by being present here.

Academy is easy for them, at least. Where other officers have to break through the preconceptions they had about struggle, hardship, and pain, she and Delian already know how to tolerate them. The two advance in their technical track quickly, both in physical combat and in specialized training. They take up top-ranking positions in their units by the end of the year even if most of their peers do not quite know who they are or why they have to follow the orders of these “nobodies.”

Lanaai watches Delian slowly evolve from a quiet, wafer-thin, shy little boy into a stoic, yet confident, filled-out beast of a θ, surpassing most of their peers for size and strength. He winds up operating heavy weaponry for simulations in contradiction his precise mechanical mind and meticulous nature. People avoid him because he is just naturally terrifying. She also notices that he begins to struggle with stress as he goes without relief for the entire year. She never asks him why he does not just find a rut, but part of her is thankful because it wants him for itself.

Lanaai has the chance to live through that fantasy, because her body decides to switch on at the end of the year and she takes the initiative. She has him for her own, even if it will only be temporary.

Delian never stops exercising these days. Between working through his mathematics, reading the latest research papers, or working on supplementary assignments for his technical track, he can be found at the gymnasium beating the spirits out of his sparring opponents or the punching bags. He returns after Fourth every night exhausted and sore, and the only reason she knows this is because he limps through their morning warm-up runs with this pained expression, and then struggles to stay awake during their morning workshops. So not only does he need the relief, but he also needs to rest. She plans to offer both as soon as he returns from the showers before they go to sleep.

_Here,_ “Delian,” she croons as he moves past her nest to slide into his. He looks up at her and heaves out a heavy breath.

_Yes?_ “What is it, Lanaai?”

She can smell him, despite the recent shower. She can see how his plates pick up just slightly at the sound of his name. What she never noticed before becomes painfully apparent now. She shifts to one side of her nest and gestures for him to join her. He bows his head and steps gingerly onto the padding and exhales again, sounding truly exhausted.

_I might disappoint you,_ “I’m very tired, Lanaai.”

“I’m not asking anything of you,” _except that you take what you need,_ she glides over his chest and settles her guardplates against the tips of his quivering guideplates. His form dwarfs hers, and he realizes how much larger he is than she thought. He is vibrating with a purr of contentment already. He settles his hands on her waist and kneads the sensitive skin there, playing with her self-control. She is comfortable, but some part of her feels uneasy about facing him. She refuses to turn her back on him, however.

After the air thickens with their blending scents, his guideplates unfold and meet her guardplates at their apex. She wills herself to part as they meet her folds and stroke gently. She shivers. The head of his tail slips past the lips of her sheath and the vice grip she has on his cowl tightens in anticipation. Her tail senses his and begins to trace the head of the appendage, already inviting him to reach inside her.

Her legs squeeze his waist with the burning sensation of the thick, ridged and plated intrusion sliding past the rings of dense nerves. Her tail coils around his at first, but as he fills and stretches her apart she has to relax everything just so he can fit. Soon enough, his almost-overwhelming girth crushes her tail completely out of the way. She pulls in a breath of air as she begins to feel filled by everything about him. She adjusts the angle of her hips to ease the pressure.

His progress is slow, and his eyes are only half-lidded, but he is no less deliberate. Her breaths shorten until she gasps when the tip of his tail presses against her _cilix._ They both take a moment to learn what connection feels like and revel in it while it lasts. Lanaai arches her back and places her hands squarely on his _atlae_ plates for leverage so she can move her hips. He doubles the motion by withdrawing his tail as she raises herself, and she whimpers as a blinding rush of feedback nearly disconnects her limbs from her mind. When she looks down again, Delian’s eyes have gone wide, as if he is surprised he could ever feel so complete.

She continues to move, but she never really picks up speed. They are both tired, and she is already straddling the limits of her system. Delian sits up after a while and slowly drags one of her legs up to his shoulder, accentuating just how small her stature is compared to his. The new angle forces her sheath to constrict around his member and she pushes her face into the crook of his neck to keep from screaming. Delian seems to have some strength left in him after all, because he really begins to move.

He spins her around easily, like she weighs nothing and pushes her chest into the padding. Her hips are yanked upwards by their connection to his as he rises to one knee and angles himself. His thrusts are long and powerful, and each one lands with a loud clap of hide against hide and a breathtaking shockwave of force that reaches every inch of her body. His purr turns to sultry growling as he continues to split her.

He eventually slows and turns her back over to face him while he keeps himself hovering above her, rolling his hips into hers. Lanaai has barely had time to breathe throughout this whole affair and she finally has a chance to pull in enough air to focus. His crown comes dangerously close to brushing against hers and she feels afraid; it would represent a change to their relationship that she would be unable to handle. Luckily he keeps his distance while he finishes up.

Delian lowers his chest onto hers and she sinks into his soft plates. He is light for his size so she does not bother to turn their positions to one side, and she rather likes the reassurance and the safety of his weight covering her. She puts her arms around his waist and drops off to sleep.

* * *

Garrus spends two years as an active commander after moving on from advanced training. Or rather, after moving on from having the academy breathing down his back constantly. He still has Blackwatch support and mentorship while he continues to run missions in the field, and they are assigned to some higher-profile strike assignments designated for the special ops team.

Special Forces command often includes his squad in the planning phases and in the ground teams once they decide to execute the missions. His superiors tell him that his approaches are difficult to get used to because they are unconventional, but as far as he can tell, controlled chaos is the only way to control anything. The enemy will always default to what they think they know; expectation is a guaranteed weakness of any opponent.

He has a very bright track record given his unusual approach to operations. When his missions diverge from the initial plan, he is always prepared with a backup. He continues to prioritize getting his squadmates out alive because without the entire team, they have no strength. He knows it is each of their skills that makes them effective, so losing any one of them would be like losing a limb.

He has found that turians are afraid to admit to the strength in attachment and camaraderie because they like to believe it makes them weaker. It does most of the time – it is the reason Lia’s absence turned him into a mess – but when properly attended to it increases the strength of the unit tenfold. Ironically, when turians bond then it suddenly becomes okay to have that attachment, but only to one person… or in rare cases two. Garrus uses this to his advantage. His superiors dislike it, but it always means that they can circle back and hit twice as hard. They hate to admit that he is right, but by now he has built up an enormous paper trail of immunity to reprimands, so if they have problems with his orders they can take it up with Command.

He still has not lost one of his own, but they have suffered casualties in the field, sometimes hardly scraping out with their lives. He can never forgive himself for Lo’kian’s injuries, the scarring of which is a permanent reminder of his failure. His teammate received a shot squarely to the head which managed to breach his shields and helm. The surgery lasted nearly twenty hours during which shards of his helm had to be removed and nerves re-connected.

Then Lo’kian had to spend months undergoing physical therapy and additional regenerative surgeries before he could use the sensors in his head again. Fortunately his attacker had not known turian physiology well-enough to know that head shots will not kill a turian because they do not keep any vital organs up there. He has a nasty scar on his forehead and it makes him even more closed-off and introverted than normal. He is already self-conscious about how his size sets him apart from everyone else and this additional blemish amplifies that feeling of isolation.

Kaepler Quo’an came in a near second when his leg was crushed under a fast-moving piece of debris. His bones had to be pieced together and he was unable to walk for half a year. It hit him hard psychologically. His whole career is dedicated to mobility and he is the best at what he does. Ripping that out from under him sent him deep into a depressive state. Rutting no longer sated him and he was constantly despondent. He had to take a potent cocktail of stims and suppressants on a daily basis to function. It reminded Garrus of himself.

The only difference is that Lo’kian and Quo’an recovered. Garrus is still broken.

And yet, they always hit back.

Their Blackwatch – and on a single occasion, Cobalt Guard – teammates have rotated out multiple times. Their operatives usually complete the higher-risk segments of their missions and so far they have suffered a number of fatal wounds. In general, with the Blackwatch leadership, the risks are “accepted.” If a teammate goes down and they do not have a clear extraction, then they are left to die. It irritates Garrus to no end but he allows them to pay for it. It is their problem if they lose perfectly capable people to their preferred strategy. They have seen his results and simply refuse to believe in its value.

Nearing the end of the year Garrus’ name, or rather his lousy nickname, ruffles a few fringes when his team completes the highest-risk infil-exfil they have encountered yet. A turian “diplomatic figure” has been captured by a shady group of human extremists, presumably to be tortured for political secrets and blackmail. Torture does not work on turians the same way because of how the turian nervous system handles pain, but the humans would figure it out soon enough. They will have to break into a highly guarded base and extract their target.

Phase one is recon. They stealthily collect as much information as they can for a cycle and then synthesize a plan. The base is built where an old mining outpost used to sit, which means they can get in from the bottom somewhere. Statistically these bases have little to no fortification from the underside, where infiltration is the least likely to occur.

From transmissions they know where the diplomat is held, but only by description. They know nothing about the true layout of the interior. They find an auxiliary subterranean exit a few kilometers out. Garrus asks Nissus to fly a shuttle through the tunnel, which they have assumed to be large enough for their smallest model. Nissus readily agrees – this is her moment. No one else would even have considered it.

Phase two is infiltration. They break the squad into two parts. Garrus is operating with his tech and cover, Sidonis and Lo’kian respectively. Nissus, Focos, and Quo’an are proceeding into the base to extract their target who they still know nothing about. The Hierarchy has adamantly insisted that her identity is restricted from nearly everyone. A “diplomat” they say… like his father. The only descriptions they have are from communications they intercept. They hardly have time before they start torturing her. If she has been through boot camp, she will last for at least a day if those humans are truly interested in the information she has.

Nissus expertly pilots the shuttle through the tunnels and up to the underside of the base without batting an eye. They have not been noticed yet. Garrus has not suspected a trap yet because the base has not been easy to get to, but the base is not heavily guarded either. This building was nearly impossible to find in the first place. Normally when humans plant bait, they feign a lack of situation awareness and hope that their opponent buys it. And it works effectively on anyone who lacks an understanding of their tactics – or a history around them. No, this base is not a baited trap _yet_.

They have been careful to stay out of sight. On his command his mobility start their cloaking fields. It is just the two of them in there, so they must walk on eggshells while Garrus decides whether or not they have actually been spotted or not. Nothing on comms chatter suggests any reason to be concerned.

As the helmet cam footage comes through, Garrus immediately memorizes the insignia he sees on nearly everything: an orange and black rhomboid shape. No name though. Sidonis carefully monitors their telemetry while Garrus attempts to match landmarks using their live feed.

He also looks for information about who these people are and why they are here in the middle of nowhere in an abandoned mining outpost with a kidnapped high-value turian “diplomat” no less. His people come across two guards outside what he is sure is her holding cell. Once they report in for their routine check, his team tranqs them out and uses their biometrics to slip into the cell.

There she is – the turian “diplomat.” There is a dead guard in the corner and she stands up out of what look like strong bindings, now completely loose. She has obviously been planning her escape for some time then, and she is no diplomat… like his father. She looks worse for wear, fresh wounds on her face and a cracked mandible indicates attempts to intimidate her. She can also smell his people, which is why she knows not to just bolt out the open door. They share the quietest of subvocal thrums while she receives a cloaking field.

Phase three is exfiltration. They only have fifteen minutes to get her out before the absence of the door guards or the guard in her cell will trigger alarm. The guards will not check in, and likely the camera jammers will become entirely too obvious once the security team becomes skittish. Nothing is ever silent and he knows the humans here are not stupid. They just are not expecting company, so their reaction time will be slower.

It gets really tight on their way out. Tara’s cloaking field starts to malfunction, resulting in an imperfect infrared bypass leaving her exposed to thermal optics… which come standard with quite literally every modern human assault rifle. This terrorist cell is certainly well-funded if the insanely-clean uniforms and sterilized interior is anything to go by. They have to take longer than expected to avoid guards with scoped rifles and infrared tracking visors. The alarm will go up sooner than they can exit the scanning radius of the anti-air systems.

Their time is up once they cram back into the shuttle and the base immediately defecates itself in alarm. Sidonis runs an overload on the base’s systems, which it surprisingly resists, so Garrus detonates the EMP charges they laid down on the way in. Only a few go off due to communications jamming and telemetry for his squadmates is now unavailable. Visually, he confirms that they escape the tunnels and begin their exit trajectory amid the gunfire, but they still have no communication.

Nissus no longer knows where they are. They planned for this, however, and head to an evac site they had marked out some thirty kilometers away. Garrus has no choice but to ask his people to start firing on the base’s air defense systems as they open up on the fleeing shuttle. The shuttle cannot pick them up, so they will be spending the night on the ground and then traveling out to evac site B. It is the only way they will be outside the range of short-range detectors. But at least everyone is alive and they have their target.

The base is in just enough confusion to do a poor job tracking their shuttle. _Very_ lucky. If those EMP charges had not gone off, they would have been shot down by the remaining turrets within seconds. As a last measure, Lo’kian gets to use his “tactical” – a euphemism – swarm-missile launcher to disable the turrets and scanners immediately exposed to the air.

The massive turian fires the single volley which blackens the sky and blankets the base with high-explosive and field-based shells, silencing the turrets for now and buying them time. The trio brace themselves against the shockwave which rocks the ground and shakes the vegetation. The native fauna here is _incredibly_ distraught about this and all manner of alien noises arise from the previously-calm jungle. Recuperating quickly, Garrus watches as their shuttle streaks out into the atmosphere and finally disappears from his scope. He briefly gains comms contact, enough to tell them go to evac site B. They spend the day moving, the night sleeping, and the next day moving again.

At the break of dawn the next day, they are picked up by a disheveled-looking Nissus and Quo’an.

_I’m tired,_ “Welcome aboard,” Quo’an greets them at the bay doors of the shuttle as they board.

_You look it,_ “Why aren’t you resting?” Garrus replies, dismounting his rifle and taking a seat.

_Why would I?_ “Nissus needs a spotter.”

_I’m concerned,_ “Yeah well, now I can spot for her. Go over there and lie down before you collapse.”

_Yes father,_ Quo’an trills and chuffs.

_I’m worried,_ “Is Focos alright?” Garrus watches Sidonis and Lo’kian bristle as they anticipate bad news.

_No,_ comes the response from Quo’an, who is now lying on the cot at the end of the cargo bay.

_Explain!_ Garrus barks, then _sorry,_ as he realizes his tone is unnecessarily harsh.

_Hit,_ “Shuttle took shrapnel through the hull from flak. Cut through her shields and her armor,” _she was reaching out to the spirits._

_Shit,_ Garrus curses under his breath. He removes his helm and finally notices the stench of her blood on Quo’an’s armor. The shuttle bay is clean, but his friend is not.

Still, they make it back to their craft and leave before they can be targeted. Intelligence has been working on the helmet cam footage and suggested that this logo matches with an organization called “Cerberus,” who have only ever shown up in Blackwatch reports and data stolen from the Alliance. Garrus could not really care less because this entire operation is about to become someone else’s problem. For once, he is relieved that he can move the burden to someone else.

The “diplomat” introduces herself as Kel Litha… that is all the information she provides them. She has been taking care of Tara Focos in her injured state. This “diplomat” is also a certified master surgeon, apparently, in addition to being a highly-trained killer and escape artist. He wonders what else his father has done if this is what a “diplomat” is.

Litha thanks and commends his team for doing a relatively clean job extracting her. In her debrief she reveals little about engagement with Cerberus, so they still do not know why she was captured or from where Cerberus stole her. They had only started to torture her for information by inflicting superficial wounds, physically accosting her multiple times to “soften her up,” as the humans put it. These amounted to beatings and a couple of non-fatal shots from small-caliber arms.

Focos really is worse for wear. The shrapnel sliced right into an unprotected area of her armor around her obliques, and she lost a lot of blood. Litha is confident that she will make a full recovery provided they take her to Palaven for further treatment. This is like Lo’kian’s injury all over again. Garrus knows Focos will not be happy to hear about that when she wakes up no longer with the team, but she needs to go. She will come back when she recovers. Garrus knows she will understand.

They drop Litha off on Palaven as well and never see or hear from her again. They do, however, see tier raises come in. Garrus remains a commander, but his tier goes up. His squad keeps their active roles, just with higher tiers to preside over other turians of the same named rank. This mission cost them, but it could have gone much worse. He scowls when he notices a transfer of funds to his account under the name of the cloaking device manufacturer, as if credits will undo the damages. He promptly forwards all of the credits to Focos’ account.

He is relieved that he still has all of his squadmates alive with him. He would never be able to forgive himself if one of them died under his watch. A death would weigh in on him for the rest of his life in the same way he cannot stop thinking about Lia Shepard and if he will ever get to see her again.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a warning: read through this knowing that at any point there may be GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS which some might find disturbing.  
> ...holy moly I forgot about this chapter...

At the ripe, young age of twenty-four, Garrus is contacted by Primarch Victus. In a private meeting they discuss an experimental joint mission between a team of highly-trained humans and turians to test the potency of a hybrid crew and to investigate the increased number of human colonies going dark.

_I am miffed,_ “why do we suddenly have the jurisdiction to deal with missing human colonies? As much as that bothers me, that’s Alliance business,” he drawls. The Alliance has enough structural issues and he would rather avoid being subjected to them.

_Watch it,_ “it’s our business because now a turian colony has gone completely dark,” _hear me,_ “and we’re trying to deploy an ’ops team out there as soon as possible. Based on what we’ve seen at the human colonies, however, we aren’t expecting positive results,” _I am disturbed,_ The Primarch stares at him with a nervous intensity.

_What the hell?_ Garrus trills in shock. The news causes Garrus to reel as he thinks about Bridge. It makes sense, in a cruel way perhaps, that whatever is abducting entire colonies would not discriminate between sentient species – although it seems to care more about humans thus far.

Garrus accepts this mission, of course, without further hesitation. They will be testing a new, bleeding-edge turian-human co-designed craft called the _Nocveus_ : the fastest and most advanced stealth corvette ever built. This mission is a test run as much as it is an investigation into the missing colonies.

“We already have people working on this investigation,” _trust me, we do,_ the Primarch explains, “if your leads take you elsewhere, then by all means pursue your evidence. We wish to evaluate the potential of hybrid crews and the quality of this starship as much as we would like more information about the missing colonies,” _two objectives, both important for our future._

_Yes sir,_ “Of course, sir,” Garrus nods his head in respect.

He does not receive any information on the humans he will be working with yet, only that they are among the best of the best. His squad will have nearly an entire human counterpart: a commander, a pilot, and two “mobility.” _Biotic_ mobility. He has not had a chance to fight alongside humans before, but he knows plenty about how they tend to fight. It should be an interesting experience if he is not completely disappointed by their performance.

“Fresh metal!” _Spirits take me!_ he calls out when he returns to his craft briefly to check on his crew and personally brief them. Quo’an is the only occupant of the mess area.

_Unfortunate_ “Already?” Quo’an replies without looking up from his datapad, “I was starting to enjoy it here,” _more or less._

“Another ‘experimental’ mission for us – from the Primarch,” _you heard me right,_ Garrus emphasizes the rank.

“Spirits,” _overkill,_ Quo’an puts down his datapad and looks up, “do you have files for us, Commander?”

_As always,_ “Updated. Hot off the reel… the reel has it out for us it seems.”

“What the hell is this?” _a bomb waiting to ignite,_ Quo’an scoffs as he reads the summary, “This looks an awful lot like a recipe for disaster.”

_Right you are, it bothers me,_ “It _is_ a recipe for disaster,” Garrus agrees, “They must _really_ want that ship stress-tested to hell and back.”

A commotion in the hall immediately halts their conversation, drawing their immediate attention.

_Come off it,_ “Get that tripe out of here. Tableaus are for morons,” _and I think you’re stupid._

Garrus snorts and buzzes with amusement. Comms officer Anatara makes sure people know when she finds them idiotic. She does not have much of a filter.

_Hey!_ “They are… but this is no tableau. I was only able to get bits of audio and some basic information… the Alliance must have _really_ wanted this taken down. Which makes it valuable,” _so I must know._

That is Sidonis’ voice. If Sidonis found something important then Garrus immediately wants to know as well.

_Tell me, children,_ “What’s going on over there?” Garrus shouts from his spot, starting to move. Sidonis saunters into the room with his head cocked, clearly listening to the aforementioned audio in his earpiece.

“Spirits…” _Spirits take me,_ he whispers, “Alright so,” he swallows and waits for his mind to catch up, “by luck I stumbled upon an information leak about a batarian raid out on a remote human colony somewhere. Normally those are kept quiet but this one trumps anything I’ve ever heard of” _by an order of magnitude._

_There is more,_ “Is that all? I was eavesdropping and heard about some audio?” Garrus continues.

“Rude,” _yes there is._

“You were shouting it at the top of your lungs,” _impossible to ignore._

_Don’t pin this on me,_ “Anatara was shouting it, I was minding my own damn business. Anyway, go ahead and listen to the audio I managed to save. Which is now completely gone – I can’t even figure out how they nixed everything so quickly and thoroughly. Usually the Alliance is terrible at cleaning up after themselves,” _or they pretend to be._

Sidonis pipes the audio to the speakers on his datapad so Garrus and Quo’an can listen. The quality is extremely lackluster and chunks of it have been obscured by silence, but they get the gist of it.

Also, seeing … little boys and girls as young … stages of being raped to death … convince me that there is such a … for these... For example … stopped … while it was happening, it was the girl’s … There … still on the counter … celebration. Both her parents were … multiple times, and … and then slaughtered. Can you imagine … live with the memories every day…

It was the first time … wonder if you are truly seeing what you think you’re seeing, … no fucking way you could ever have … of something so… live with knowing that there’s this poor, broken … never live … can’t do anything about it. The damage … see this a dozen … three dozen…

The English-speaking female voice is garbled, but it sounds uncomfortably familiar. Sidonis shakes his head again.

“I can’t believe it… unreal,” _tragic,_ “ _Fuck. Raiders,_ ” Anatara mutters and takes her leave.

Garrus can understand why the Alliance would prefer if the truthful, yet brutal details of such a raid were completely obliterated. The human governments like to keep their populace innocent and ignorant of such problems, and he is quite certain that they do not want to incite any conflict with the batarian hegemony, even if the hegemony is supposedly not associated with these pirates. He can tell Quo’an and Sidonis feel a sense of relief, ironically, knowing that their encounters with slavers and raiders are universal and that someone finally spoke the truth.

His mind returns to his immediate future once again and he begins to formulate a list of tasks in preparation for the upcoming mission. Working with humans is risky not because he has a difficult time interacting with them, but because their backgrounds make it challenging to avoid misunderstandings.

* * *

She elects to remain in the program, true to Anderson’s expectation that she would, because she has momentum. In four years Shepard advances all the way to the top, capping off her career as a commander. In the final year of her training she works on real operations under the mentorship of special operations and external operations.

Avalenus tells her before he has to leave for his next station that she would have made a great turian – not in the traditional sense because she hates following terrible orders, but in the way she wields every asset she has as a weapon, including her intelligence. She knows her weaknesses and strengths and puts herself in a place where she can make the most of both.

“The greatest turians, ironically, are the ones who break the rules to do the right thing or choose to approach the problem in a novel manner. They are less talked-about, but they always make a difference,” he explains, “and you will make a difference as well.”

Her last assignment with the program, the one which prompts her promotion to commander, does more to expose her true self to her peers than it has any effect on herself. She finds herself even more bothered by the Alliance than normal, and almost any chance to get away from jurisdiction would be welcomed. They are called in for immediate support on a human colony planet – Mindior – which has come under siege from batarian slavers.

Why does it seem that any time she hears or reads about batarians doing anything, it is base and violent? Either the media over-saturates and perpetuates a stereotype, or there is a reason the stereotype exists. Though, the batarians apparently sell human slaves all over the place and not only to batarians, so it looks like the rest of the galaxy is no better for their complacency with slavery. They have little time to prepare. Briefing is just “stop the batarians from killing any more colonists or leaving with any slaves.” It sounds like any concept of morality will not be worth her time.

Research into their culture lends credence to using sheer violence to fix the problem. The dominant native batarian languages have no words for “morals” or “ethics” – they have to borrow words from other languages to describe these concepts.

Shepard has had to kill people in her missions before and usually it is well-justified: self-defense or individuals who are so dangerous that they cannot be allowed to stay alive for any longer. Her first kill was an adrenaline rush and each subsequent kill she became colder and colder to it, the emotion of it fading into hardly a stir. Now it is merely a process; a tool she uses to solve problems.

She has come to understand that everyone’s life is equally worthless, and being alive is quite irritating in the first place, so ending a life quickly is practically charity, especially if it means they do not have to face the lifelong consequences of their actions. The people she has taken down will never have to rot from the inside as the guilt of what they have done eats them, or allow the penal systems lock them in solitary confinement and allow them to die from insanity and loneliness, or abuse and torture.

Her recently-acquired pilot, Jeff “Joker” Moreau, the best in the Alliance navy, gets them in fast and low with a highly-illegal maneuver. He has a rare chance to spread his wings and show his teeth. He is a killer despite his light-hearted demeanor. She has their air-to-air munitions team waste the enemy craft in orbit first before continuing to target shuttles and other transport vehicles. They get a quick look at the carnage from the skies first and it pretty much seems like they just have to go in and shoot every last batarian to end the assault. There will be no time to bring reason and justice down there with them.

The batarian onslaught lacks structure – the raiders swoop in, kill and rape people, take others as slaves, and leave. There is no empathy and there is no justice. Usually that works for them because the colonists here are not exactly structured either, and in almost every case the Alliance has no defense plans or resources available. So Shepard decides to be just as indiscriminate when dealing with her enemy.

She takes her people to the ground and has her craft continue to provide close air-support. She orders Alenko and Williams to kill any batarians on sight, even those who surrender, because there is really no point in leaving them alive anyway. They have already proven themselves to be worthless by partaking in the defilement of innocent lives. “Surrender” is also not a word in the greater batarian lexicon, literally.

The three of them storm in and raise the Alliance communications system which had been previously jammed. They find their friendly support who have all scattered about the colony’s heart: a surprisingly large, recently-populated town with several main streets and a predictable block structure. The humans with military-grade weapons here are no more than Alliance soldiers and greenies who have returned home for some R and R. Several non-humans are mixed in as well: she finds thermal magazines from turian weaponry and finds a single asari corpse strewn across one of the prefabs covering the corpse of an asari child. She spots a turian in light armor and a human female in plain colony clothing taking cover and taking shots downrange. A krogan lumbers out of a storefront, snaps a batarian adversary in two, and tosses the two halves into the street. No one is an alien here; this is simply their home and they are defending it how they see fit.

Shepard grabs the attention of the operator and motions towards a rally point. The turian nods, lowers his head to speak to his companion, and then begins to move. Shepard’s relief is tangible as she notices that this turian is definitely trained – perhaps even a specialist. He is going to help repel the attack immensely.

This central area still has to be cleared, and she suspects there are batarians holed-up in the residences doing unspeakable things to these innocent humans. She takes her people and they start sweeping. They move into town which has a mixed occupation of Alliance soldiers, batarian raiders, and angry colonists with shotguns and rifles and makeshift weaponry. Shepard’s team moves in and indiscriminately liquidates any batarian targets they come across who are not wearing colony identifiers.

They are not surrendering, not really. Shepard has looked into batarian history after having heard so many shitty things about them, trying to find a point at which they were not so terrible, and it was difficult. Batarians never understood the concept of surrender. The fought and they lied. Surrender was another distraction tactic and they learned it by watching other species do it with varying degrees of success. The untrained soldier might fall prey to the distraction, but she knows better.

Shepard orders Alenko and Williams to circle around the next building while she takes the front. She finds them doing the things she expected them to be doing – killing, torturing, and raping. She heaves out the contents of her stomach after killing a pirate and pulling him off a shaking young woman, a _teenager,_ only to find his penis dangling about and covered in crimson. She wonders if this is really happening before glancing back to the corpse with the offending member still erect as blood continues to flow through it, despite the death of its owner. The girl looks at her with wide, teary eyes before pulling her underwear back up and wincing. Shepard scowls and shoots the batarian again. She has to move on; she may have to stop more occurrences of this. Alenko and Williams meet up with her as she proceeds to the back of the compound, looking equally stony.

It is confirmation bias, but it only sucks any lingering droplets of remorse straight from her system. With every lifeless, distorted human corpse they encounter, she just becomes angrier. There are children here with their clothes torn, covered in evidence of sexual assault, and riddled with bullet wounds. There are severed limbs and body parts. There are innocent people who have died choking in their own blood. All of these nightmares are scanned and archived for medical and cause-of-death reports so the Alliance can have an accurate representation of the damage dealt. Sharpening and refining the truth in this way makes everything worse.

The fire burns. There is no justice.

“Please!” a batarian holds his hands up, stammering, “listen I didn’t want to be down here… I had no choice… there was no other way to secure funds to get my family off that fucking planet-”

Shepard puts a bullet squarely between his eyes and terminates all of his problems immediately. _What a liar._

“Skip…” Williams starts uncomfortably.

“Don’t let yourself be manipulated by desperate-sounding words, Williams,” Shepard replies as she steps over the body, tagging its location for the eventual cleanup crew.

“Not like you,” Kaidan says, surprising her by giving her backtalk as well.

“Alenko, I’m going to do that thing I hate and ask you to follow my lead without asking questions. Ultimately this problem will not be solved with diplomacy, and the very few exceptions have no bearing on its resolution.”

“Yes ma’am,” Alenko nods, his jaw tight, but she needs to set him straight just to be sure.

“He donned the colors of his superiors and made a choice. And also he was fucking lying. If the DNA scans from this slaughterhouse are anything to go by, then the semen on the mother and little girl in the other room belong to him. That weapon is still warm. The magazine is missing the same twenty shots I counted on the bodies and the walls. Sounds like a real _family man_ to me.”

Alenko returns to silence and Williams glances to the dead body momentarily before blanching a bit. The both fall in line. He may have been telling the truth about having a family, but she denies any potential guilt the ability to take control of her now. His family can burn for all she cares; it would be just a match on the massive inferno that his associates have raised over this colony.

Once they finish clearing the residences, they form a stronger perimeter and gather some extra colonists who still want to fight. So far they have been killed, but none have been taken away. Shepard doubles down on the order to hammer their low-atmosphere craft. No humans on board means they are perfectly valid targets.

The raid begins to pick up as more pirate craft show up in atmosphere, and Joker has to bug out to avoid losing his own, but not before sending down the rest of their reserve officers in shuttles with heavy defense weaponry and any medical supplies they can find. Shepard and her line hold off the opposing craft and foot soldiers in a hail of fire. The alliance equipment is adequate and minimizes casualties on her side. Since arriving here and organizing their forces, they have suffered some grazes and non-fatal bullet wounds, but no deaths. She intends to keep in that way.

Alenko uses his biotics to deadly effect, ripping up approaching air and ground targets alike using the skills he learned from his asari mentor. Williams backs up Shepard’s precise and deadly fire with her own. Her loudspeaker-like voice relays Shepard’s orders to other teams in the absence of proper personal comms.

She is infinitely thankful for the several turians who arrive at the line and help out because they are absolutely deadly up here; the operator they encountered earlier is certainly well above her level of experience but allows her to keep command. She has a chance to experience first-hand the deadly rhythm. The krogan eventually arrives as well and joins the fight. A single batarian wearing colony colors approaches them, hoists a DMR that he clearly took from a pirate, and fires mercilessly on the attackers; he looks properly livid, so Shepard ignores him while he mows down raiders.

The hours become long and the fields become orange-red. At this point it seems like the batarians are attacking out of spite and not because they want to steal people. That is fine by Shepard – she has a solid defensive perimeter and a bottomless supply of thermal magazines to spend. Nothing beats a little target practice. After eight hours of attempts, the raiders finally give up after suffering devastating losses.

Once more Alliance craft arrive to assist with clean up and recovery, Shepard enables Joker to return and shoot down the remaining pirate craft. The fewer survivors the better. She briefly converses with several of the humans here and the operator from earlier and then returns to her ship. She forces herself to stay awake to oversee the proper return of their crew and any equipment they brought into the field.

She sleeps briefly once everything is accounted for, handing leadership over to Williams, and has horrible, violent, fevered nightmares about the whole experience. She is completely unable to remove every little detail from her mind. In her bouts of paranoia and sweating she questions her own approach to dealing with the situation: a proper lack of morals even in the face of an unethical enemy makes her no better than a machine, but it was the first way she thought to act. She always argues that every problem has nuances which must be taken into consideration, yet in practice she just cuts them down to polarized reasoning. Is this simply who she is?

In the morning Anderson calls her and discusses the mission while she can barely keep her eyes open.

“Hello, Anderson. Shepard here,” she slurs into the mic.

“How are you fairing, child,” he greets her with his “fatherly” tone, sensing from her greeting that she is worse for wear.

“I’m tired,” she responds truthfully.

“I understand.”

There is an awkward pause before he continues talking, “Shepard I am disappointed with your brutality. What happened to the woman I knew just last week? You’ve always applied a moral compass to your decision making. What you did may have worked, but was it just?”

She breathes in sharply and shakes her head. It is too early to deal with more negativity, especially not from someone she trusts as much as Anderson. Shepard understands why he would say that, but he had not been to the ground to see that “justice” was not applicable for those _parasites._

“Did you take a look at my helmet cam footage?” she asks, prying her eyes open so she can focus on transferring the files if he needs them.

“Not yet,” comes the reply. She pushes them over to his omni-id.

“I want you to take a look.”

“Why is that?”

“So you’ll see what I saw.”

“Shepard…”

“Watch it, and then tell me if you think ‘justice’ even exists.”

“Shepard,” he sounds like he is about to start pleading with her, “God almighty,” he curses under his breath as she hears him start looking over her documented experience.

“Listen to me, child,” his voice hardens, but his choice of words remains soft, “there is a lot of talk around here about your actions down there. Mixed. But I want to tell you personally that you are natural-born leader and people will listen to you and they follow you. You spared the colony a great deal of additional damages by taking control. While I may not entirely agree that what you did was _just,_ I cannot allow your heroism to fall by the wayside. As of right now you are a commander of the Alliance Navy. Be strong, Shepard, because you are the first line of defense against harsh reality.”

She bows her head. She wants to go home right now. She hardly has the energy to thank him for it because food is difficult for her to keep down lately, so she has opted to skip meals.

“I will speak to you later, Shepard. Get some sleep.”

Shepard is not proud of herself and does not feel like killing hundreds of batarians who lacked proper combat training or organization really counts, but she accepts it anyway. She views the promotion more as compensation for having to suffer through and witness the atrocities of a true batarian slaver raid.

Any position that causes people take her seriously and value her input is good for her. The only times she feels content are when she is solving a problem or providing value to someone or something else. As a commander, people value her, and that is what she wants. She knows that she needs people to value her because she cannot value herself.

In the following weeks she works tirelessly to coordinate disaster recovery crews to handle her elaborate fuckup, which left behind more collateral damage than she considers to be “professional.” Mindior might never truly recover from this and the victims of the attack who survived are husks of their former selves. It may be painful to admit, but they are truly worthless shells of skin and blood left awake to shamble, broken, until their inevitable expiration. The raiders take even more lives posthumously as suicide rates skyrocket. There is little to be done about it, and she takes it personally.

She receives letters of praise and anguish, none of which help her feel anything other than regret over how she approached the problem. The inflammatory and spiteful words in some of these messages leech off her conscious while the equally boundless gratitude and encouragement do nothing. The words never leave her, even after she hands off the coordination efforts to another Alliance team and returns to the Citadel.

She spends a single day on the Citadel running errands while her craft restocks her crew “enjoys” some properly-earned shore leave. She spends the latter portion of her evening at a bar sipping a heavily-sugarized carbonated beverage while watching Williams drink a lot and making sure she returns to the craft safely. Eventually she intervenes and yanks Williams out with her so she can avoid suicide-by-alcohol poisoning. They really should have a discussion about her obsession with chasing down blackouts.

“Lieutenant Shepard?” she hears the woman call to her and she immediately feels irritated. Already a reporter knows about her, somehow, she does not want to answer loaded questions.

“Yes?” she replies stupidly, knowing she should ignore the invitation to converse. And yet, she never does and she does not know why she cannot.

“Kalisah BintSinan al-Jilani, Westerlund News. I have been talking to a number of soldiers who said they were under your command on Mindior and they say good things. It appears you have gained a reputation from your heroism.”

Shepard waits for something else to happen.

“You were preying on drunk people for secrets? Isn’t that a bit gauche?” she asks. She realizes after her reply that she is _still_ talking to this reporter.

“But some,” the reporter continues, ignoring her, “are calling you the ‘butcher’ because of how you handled the attack. They are criticizing your brutality on the ground. How would you explain your lack of morality to them? Do you harbor a hatred against the batarian people?”

Shepard notices the loaded question and her eyes begin to roll into the stratosphere. She views a brief, fragmented flash of her youngest years – _Why do you ask so many stupid questions, Tycus?_ Shepard tries not to retort about the moronic question that the reporter just pushed on her. Now Shepard must explain all of her reasoning otherwise she will be unable to forgive herself. Maybe if she provides the rationale she can convince them she is not a machine.

“Shuddup yousstupid-” Shepard clamps a hand over William’s mouth before she can curse out the other woman and ruin her reputation any harder.

“The batarian languages, of which there are three primary and hundreds of local and derivative languages – spoken throughout colonies – commonly lack words like ‘morality’, ‘ethics’, and ‘surrender.’ Ninety-five percent of them, actually, isn’t that shocking?” she asks sarcastically. The reporter looks confused as to what Shepard could possibly be talking about. Shepard continues.

“Language influences perception of reality, so it is no coincidence, that in the major wars waged by the batarians, either against themselves or other species – Kol’s War, The Unification of Bakaml, Kirv’sh’s Genocide, The Holocaust of Melak, to name a few – not once was ‘surrender’ ever employed or ‘mercy’ ever granted. All of those wars left one side completely destroyed and set back the species as a whole hundreds of years… equivalent to the ‘dark ages’ on Earth. The Hegemony’s rise to power and maintenance of power is also based around killing political opponents and the subjugation and objectification of women. So when I went down there, I was only playing by the rules the raiders have created for themselves over hundreds of years.”

The reporter looks at her completely aghast. Shepard glares at her and speaks before another question can happen.

“Sheess not worthe-” Williams begins, but Shepard stops her. Alenko notices them and wanders over.

“Take her,” Shepard growls.

“Should I be concerned?” he asks and nods towards the “reporter.”

“No. I’ll see you back on the ship,” Shepard replies. Alenko begins to drag Williams away. Shepard resumes her rant where she left-off, itching to impose the horror of her experience upon this totally and utterly ignorant woman.

“Also, seeing human children – innocent little boys and girls as young as five – in various stages of being raped to death or tortured does not exactly convince me that there is such a thing as ‘morality’ for these pirates. For example, in one of the residences I stopped a rape while it was happening, it was the girl’s sixteenth birthday. There was birthday cake still on the counter, like they had just started their little celebration. Both her parents were dead in the room, her father shot multiple times, and her mother had obviously been raped and then slaughtered. Can you imagine what that would be like? How about ten? Twenty? I certainly couldn’t have… but now I get to live with the memories every day and the survivors are broken… well over seventy percent have already been lost to suicide,” the reporter looks really uncomfortable and she cannot really speak. Shepard keeps her voice level despite her own demons. She needs to _tell_ someone about this.

“It was the first time I witnessed such a thing… for a second you freeze up and wonder if you are truly seeing what you think you’re seeing, because there is just no fucking way you could ever have _conceived_ of something so… heinous. And then once you’ve dealt with the current problem now you have to live with knowing that there’s this poor, broken individual who will never live a normal life, and that you can’t do anything about it. The damage is already done. And then you have to see this a dozen… two dozen… maybe three dozen more times. I can’t go back to be the woman I was anymore.”

Still no reply from the reporter, who has gone visibly pale. The woman’s eyes flicker quickly to the camera as if pleading with someone on the other end.

“I don’t hate all batarians, mind you,” Shepard continues, “just all of those batarians who attacked Mindior. Does that about answer your fucking question?”

There is a pause for a moment before the reporter speaks into her comms so quietly Shepard can hardly hear it: “fox-kilo.” This must be the codeword to cut the feeds and discard whatever they just recorded.

“Thank you for your time, Commander,” the reporter’s mouth smiles but her eyes do not. She leaves quickly. It had not seemed like her interviewer expected this much from an “Alliance soldier.” She also probably did not expect the graphic description either, but Shepard really wanted her to understand why she had to be sure all the attackers were eradicated.

Leaks of this short interview surface briefly, merely hours following this, before they disappear at the hands of the Alliance’s best covertly-employed information gods who specialize in “damage control.” They allow the Alliance to subsequently deny the events of Mindior even happened. She guesses it is an attempt to minimize tensions with the Hegemony, despite the fact that Mindior was one of the Alliance’s most prominent agricultural colonies, with an additional focus on research and development of experimental energy sources. Fucking perfect.

Anderson sends her a short message the following cycle: _Keep away from the media. They are just as psychopathic as the slavers. I’m working on killing your “moniker.” You deserve better than that._

Anderson has watched the three of them climb the ranks so he is quick to offer them a role on a very important reconnaissance mission: more human colonies are going dark without warning; all the colonists vanish. It has happened now five times in the last four years, classifying it as an extreme priority. Shepard interprets this as an opportunity to pull her off any standard roster and absolve the rest of the Alliance from any direct association. They least will have the opportunity to work with a turian Special Forces team to spearhead this mission. To top it off they are granted a state-of-the-art turian-human co-designed stealth corvette: the _Normandy_.

* * *

Lanaai wakes up and stirs in Delian’s arms.

_Wake up,_ “It’s late. Let’s get a move on,” she flares her mandibles and yawns. His eyes open and he gathers his surroundings, releasing her quickly. The abrupt tightening of his plates shoves her away rather ungracefully, and he practically leaps out of her nest. She understands his wariness because she knows what he is afraid of, so she hides her pain from him.

He speaks very little with her following their rut, so she affords him the silence that he seems to prefer drowning in. But, as the period comes to a close and the fatigue in his body peaks, he approaches her and speaks with his soft voice.

“Would you care to join me?” _for a rut?_ She nods and wraps herself around him; and this cycle repeats itself. She starts to hear him speak more about the life he left behind that he used to keep to himself as they become even closer than ever. She has to begin to ask herself if she loves him – as a mate – just to check, because she cannot tell where their relationship is heading. She has not rutted any of the other males here and she cannot recall a time when Delian bore another female’s or φ’s scent.

But they are both too young and eventually the Hierarchy will draw them apart. And yet… she memorizes the way he feels, and every time they are together she feels comfortable. Even as they specialize and see each other less and less; even when they are separated into different accommodations according to their skill groups in their second and third years. Males approach her and ask her to rut, but she always says no because she always has a project to attend to between upholding her training regimen. And also… they just do not understand where she comes from. She does not trust them in the way she can take her trust in Delian for granted. She cannot open herself to someone she cannot trust.

With no form of restraint she excels in tech and close quarters combat, soon finding herself in advanced training programs and due for early graduation. Delian keeps up with her, blazing his own trail through the odd world of turian strategic and tactical logistics, statistics, and practical applications of calculus in the field. She never works with him in field training, but she spars with him enough to know that he is formidable, and that he would be anyone’s first choice as support or even operation in some cases.

They both graduate class γ with the expectation that they will move onto λ or even ω after they train to join Special Forces. Her and Delian’s tiers are up at 50 and 55 respectively. If only her parents could see her now. They both accept admittance to the same Special Forces preparatory academy. Now, more than ever, Delian is the only remaining family she has in the galaxy.

When they both make it through the gates of the unnamed preparatory academy and have time to adjust to the new scenario, they find it no more challenging than their previous experience. The only major difference is that their superiors seem to take more time to speak with them and know who they are, as if it will help them direct their training efforts with greater efficiency. Whether or not it does or does not make a difference, she complies and shares what little information she has about herself and her family. She still never quite knew what her parents did to put food on the table, for better or for worse.

_Come!_ “Acronus, on me!,” _urgently,_ Commander Val’ens barks as he passes by, striding swiftly past her work area towards the shuttle bay.

_Yes sir!_ “Following,” she drops what she is working on and falls into step with her commander and wonders what he seems to be so stressed about.

_Gear up,_ “Prepare for infiltration. You’re dropping with my team in twenty minutes,” he fixes her with a look that explains his tone. She does not have the authority to ask him why, but she expects him to tell her anyway. Right now the sense of movement is clear and she has to move quickly if she wants blue lights on all of her equipment checks. This must be some kind of field test.

When she looks around the group of five other turians in the shuttle with her twenty minutes later, she begins to realize that this is no field test. She recognizes two of them as instructors here and one is the master of techniques for their section; these are turians with years of experience and expertise… and yet here she is. Why is she here?

_Mission plan,_ Val’ens speaks calmly in this proximity, “In the brief absence of Septimus, I have brought our most accomplished rising Infiltrator to fill her role. Acronus is highly-skilled and you will trust her to do her job,” _she is my charge, I speak on her behalf,_ “We are hitting a separatist outpost, confirmed to be active. These are dangerous individuals and intel suggests that they possess a bio-weapon. Thirty minutes ago we intercepted plans to deploy the device in Cipritine. Stopping them here is… failure is not an option,” _or we may lose the city._

Lanaai gulps and shifts uneasily. This _is_ serious. Val’ens seems to think she is prepared the ground. She’s only _eighteen._ What if they want her to kill someone… for real?

_Take care,_ “I’ve passed the mission layout to your omni-tools. Any questions you must ask in the next minute. We have two minutes before drop.”

The mission will begin with infiltration. She is supposed to enter the base _alone_ and assess the situation before calling in the rest of the squad. From there, it will become an _delatim_ : search and destroy without any predicates for exception… no hesitation, no mercy, no survivors. She did join the Hierarchy to be put onto a death squad, but her Commander ordered her to do this, so she will follow. The guilt and regret can come later, once the mission is over and she has time to reflect.

Modern simulations are near-perfect representations of reality, only with the critical difference that failure is an opportunity to learn and improve. Here, failure has a real cost and could drastically affect millions of lives. The pressure is on, but she understands pressure and she knows how to do what she has been asked to do. The simulations and the specialized training prepared her well for this, and field work was inevitable right from the start. She still wishes Delian were here.

The shuttle drops her off alone at the foot of an overgrown compound in the middle of one of Palaven’s dense jungles of cyan, cobalt, and silver. She puts her training into practice and makes her way towards her objective with the same determination and attention to detail that she applies to all things. Val’ens guides her from his vantage point several kilometers above.

She locates the compound, hidden by the canopy and the roots that snake across its concrete and metal walls. Several guards patrol the recessed balconies, wearing light armor and carrying light weaponry. None are wearing full helmets which will give her a perfect view of their faces when she has to kill them. She swallows and raises her linear rifle to tag the targets. Val’ens gives her the go-ahead to take them down once they clear each other’s line of sight.

She breathes in and remembers her training, put so “eloquently” by one of the veterans:

_You’ve calibrated your rifle to hit a pin head on the moon. Crosshair on target, breathe in and pull the trigger – fuck the “Coriolis” effect, gravity, and atmospheric disturbance; your projectile is travelling ten times the speed of light. It will arrive at the target before you even pull the trigger._

She shakes her head and depresses the trigger, then quickly swings her scope to the next target so she does not have to see the damage she did. She fights to keep the bile down in her throat and pulls the trigger again. _I am so distraught,_ she hums, but continues onto the third separatist guard and sends a round precisely through his brain. The armor contains most of the carnage, but she watches the surprised expression freeze on his face as his muscles release slowly.

_Spirits take you,_ “You’re doing flawless work, Acronus. You’ll adjust,” the Commander’s reassurance is genuine, but she still cannot believe him.

She moves up and plants false responders on the bodies to keep surveillance checkups from figuring out their guards are dead, keeping her eyes away from all the blood and chunks of chitin that made it out of their armor and compression suits. She is thankful her helmet is filtering out all scents because this cannot smell pleasant, and she can just barely keep it together as is.

She snakes her way along the walls and works her way into the base using a code ripped from one of the guards’ omni-tools. More personnel are present inside, oblivious to her presence. Her stealth cloak is her only lifeline in here at this point, and any failure in the systems will immediately trigger any one of the cameras watching for thermal anomalies. Even without a cloak, hesitating too long in one area will heat the air enough that the cameras can detect it.

Val’ens has her looking for a control room that she can use to flip security and lock the doors… to keep anyone from leaving while they are… systematically slaughtered. From the CIC in this facility it will be a simple matter to locate the weapon and make sure it is disarmed before the rest of the team drops in to finish the job. Without making a sound, she walks the interior of the base and maps it out for her squad. She has an idea of where the control center might be located, but the expert on their team already knows and places the marker on her map in the middle of a blank zone.

“This is a standard layout, love,” _easy to break,_ comes another voice, female, unnervingly soft with a slight northeastern accent – breathy, long vowels, crisp consonants – who she assumes to be their tech specialist, “I’ve updated your omni-tool to override the doors. Expect the CIC to be occupied,” _sidearm in hand._

Lanaai does as she is told and presses onward, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach. She is top-ranked for close-quarters in her section, but this is _real._ The door to the CIC is already open when she reaches it and she pauses.

_A trap,_ “the door is open, CIC is empty. It’s a lure,” she says quietly, “they must know something.”

_It’s quite possible,_ “affirmative. Reevaluating. Standby for a moment,” _good call,_ Val’ens clips over the comms.

Several seconds of deafening silence pass by while she glares into the CIC to try to spot any kind of explosive or disruption mechanism waiting in there. She rules out both, however, because this _is_ the CIC for this outpost and blowing something up in there would shut down the entire operation. She has to move in order to avoid setting off the thermal cameras and notices the telltale sign of an opposing thermal anomaly waiting at the other end of the CIC.

_A cloak,_ “cloaked enemy located,” she moves and keeps her eyes trained on the patch of slightly warmer air in the general shape of a crouching turian. She cannot tell if they spotted her but she will not take her chances.

_Unexpected problem,_ “Alright we’re going to drop in _now._ You are capable, officer, but you are not expected to handle cloaked adversaries one-on-one. You’ll drop an EMP into the CIC when we give you the signal. You may engage your target if they are pursuing; otherwise you regroup with us,” _you will run,_ “clear?”

_Sir,_ “Yes sir,” she removes two detonators from her belt and primes them just behind the wall so the invisible enemy cannot read their energy signatures. She keeps her breathing steady while she waits for commander’s signal.

_Now!_ “Stun!” he calls. Lanaai whips the detonators into the room and immediately the cloaked target moves, vanishing off her thermal sensors, leaving a ghostly silhouette behind. She does not stick around to tell if her adversary is pursuing her, but the flickering lights and alarms indicate that the detonators worked and that no one is leaving. There are shouts in the corridor, and she grits her teeth against the empty feeling in her chest as she tackles one of the separatists and puts a bullet through his neck, killing him instantly. His female companion whips around, presenting her weakly-armored chest, making her an easy second kill. Lanaai shakes her head and moves on, rushing to meet up with her squadmates.

The sounds of carnage begin to tune out as familiar to those she has heard in simulations as the fight turns from silence to cacophony. She kills two more separatists on the way to her team and meets up with them as they finish clearing a room. There is carnage all over the place, and she is one of the monsters responsible for it.

Val’ens was right. After the sixth or seventh kill she begins to tune out the feeling, and the enemy shifts from individuals like herself, with families and histories and friends, to problems requiring a solution. They do eventually find, disarm, and neutralize the bio-weapon they suspected the separatists were working on here, so their mission is a resounding success. Their shuttle, which doubles as a gunship to deal with any fleeing separatists, cracks open one of the vehicle bays with its powerful guns and dives in to pick them up.

_Well done,_ “Clean execution, despite the change of plans. Drinks are on me,” Val’ens looks around his teammates with his head slightly bowed. His eyes finally land on her.

_I am impressed,_ “You exceeded our expectations, Acronus. Expect a tier raise for your excellent work in a high-pressure scenario, and your ability to adapt.”

_Sir,_ “Thank you sir,” she graciously accepts the praise even though she does not deserve it. After the debrief, she does not stick around to join their off-hours gathering and celebration of success, opting instead to return to Delian for a rut. She needs to wind down and she only hopes that he will be so gracious as to attend to her if she can find him.

As luck would have it, she runs into him in the empty locker room just as he is stepping into one of the shower stalls to rinse off after his late workout. He glances in her direction and props his up his brow plates in an expression of intrigue and worry. Lanaai quickly strips out of her armor and joins him in the shower stall, which is barely large enough for two – but it is definitely designed to fit two. Turians are well-aware of where their people tend to rut… Delian wraps his hands around her bottom and easily aligns her, allowing her time to encircle his waist with her legs before he penetrates her. She sighs and enjoys the familiarity of being filled and stretched. He holds her still and pumps his hips slowly, allowing the movement of his tail and platelets to do all the work.

He completes her quickly and releases her gently, allowing the ground to return to her feet. His eyes are keen and unblinking as he scans her face; and more likely her soul.

_You’ve lost your innoncence,_ “You killed today,” he says plainly, but his subharmonics tell a much richer and darker story.

_What did you do?_ “I did,” she cannot help but wonder how he knows.

_So have I,_ “I know what it feels like. I know. After the fifth or sixth you forgot that you’re taking a life away…”

_Spirits take you,_ “Do you want to talk about it?”

_Never,_ he growls, “I did what I had to do.”

_I’m here with you,_ “Alright… alright. Thank you for the rut by the way-”

“I could smell you before you even entered the locker room. I figured as much,” _someday it will be better._

_I’m sorry I never noticed,_ “Let’s go back to the room. Get some proper rest.”

His mandibles twitch, _yes,_ “Of course… rest,” _it will be possible._

She briefly considers snuggling up with him but thinks better of it. They both need room to breathe right now. She drops off to sleep and forces memories of the mission out of her mind.

The soft ping of her omni-tool wakes her and alerts her to a new message. She curses because she thought she had it silenced during her resting hours. She notices it is a message from Commander Val’ens, who should also be sleeping right now, but it must be important because this is _personal ID._ She reads the message and slowly the air leaves her lungs. Lanaai stares at the message again. She feels similar, if not worse than when she learned of her father’s death over a bland, emotionless, text-based message.

Officer Acronus,

Your spectacular performance on our last drop gained the attention of myself, my squadron, and my superiors. We have negotiated a contract with the academy to have you attached to our team as a mentee to our infiltrator and tech specialist, Sicara Septimus. She has recently been cleared for duty, and she will develop your potential. She has expressed her personal interest in helping you. As of today you are relocating to our quarters as you are now part of this team. You will be included in all field missions that we deem suitable for you.

An itinerary is attached to this document to help you relocate. Welcome to the team, we look forward to having you with us.

Commander IX with distinctions, Kastor Val’ens

_Goodbye de’lian,_ she glances up at his slumbering mass and drops her head back into the pillow. This is simply what must be done. She finally makes up her mind that her inability to know whether or not she loves him means that she _does not._ Surely she would know by now; surely it would take hold of her and shake her about and _make_ her know. She just knows that the thought of leaving him behind hurts.

_Goodbye,_ he rumbles without getting up. She did not realize she said it out loud. She suits up quietly, grabs her duffel bag, and exits the room.


	11. Chapter 11

Garrus and his squad are given a tour of the _Nocveus_ by one of the proud human engineers who worked on its design. It makes Garrus regret his life choices: he could have been imagining _this_ for a living instead of killing people. He could have lived his life creating the most beautiful works of aesthetic design and practical engineering, but he had lost his way.

The ship is amazing. He can clearly see the human inspiration in her sleek exterior and interior. The turian layout is familiar. The _toroidal_ drive core is the most powerful ever designed for its scale. Garrus almost keens when he sees it there and a wave of emotions flood him, dredged up from what seems to be a past life. Lia’s hand _must_ have played a part in the construction of this ship.

By the time they circle back around to the CIC after he is done marveling at everything and being excited about having a commanding role over this craft, he smells something. He is almost certain he recognizes it, but it is quite weak. It is once they return to the CIC that he realizes that he has been smelling Lia’s scent. He keens quietly to himself out of joy – more evidence that she had a hand in making this craft and was here so recently that he can still detect her presence. He imagines that she spent countless hours working on this starship perfecting every detail and found contentment in creating the greatest modern stealth corvette ever built. Hell, it even _looks_ like the _Terminus_.

It seems that despite everything, she did not lose her way like he did.

* * *

On the shuttle ride in the first thing she notices about their new ship is the mainsails. Four massive Vircon Dynamics mainsails sit on gently angled wings connected to a beautiful, sleek fuselage. She recognizes her fairing design wrapping the larger pair and smiles inwardly. It feels surprisingly good to see her work put to use here.

Shepard and her squad just miss the turian team they will be working with. But she hears lingering conversations about them.

“Did you see that?” a hushed turian voice to one side draws her immediate attention, “ _titan_ is on board! This isn’t a shakedown, for sure.”

“What in spirit’s name?” comes the surprised reply, “since when does _titan_ work with people… like us?”

She recognizes The _novataetran_ word for “rhythm” mixed in with the standard _Praexus_. She has just barely begun to learn the new turian language for something to do… and because it is the language of Garrus’ father’s family. She is doing it because she cannot let go of the notion that someday she will see Garrus again and that, unless she impresses him, he will have no reason to acknowledge her.

She assumes this is an alias given to one of the individuals on their Special Forces attachment. She puzzles about the designation and comes to the conclusion that this individual is most likely a sniper, and the “rhythm” is the absolute steadiness and precision of their shots. It is quite corny, but the turians certainly respect the name. She had no idea that turians gave nicknames to other turians; that seems to be more of a human behavior.

Her stomach starts to turn upside down as she contemplates the possibility that this is Garrus they are referring to. It is a dreadfully optimistic assumption, but she cannot shake the feeling. She vaguely remembers him mentioning his experience as an operator the last time they talked… seven years ago. Either way, he is not supposed to be here. He is supposed to be following in Avita’s footsteps. He is an architect of the future and a composer of reality, not a killer.

An engineer leads them around the ship, the _Normandy_ as it has been codenamed by the humans. She puzzles over why the codename “Normandy” was chosen, if the intent was to reference the battle of Normandie. A lot of people died on the beaches as they were thrown in front of gunfire; it was a total slaughter. This ship is supposed to represent a turning point in battle, though she does not know what battle the _Normandy_ is supposed to fight as a _recon vessel._ Shepard supposes the name is “good-enough.”

The turians call her _Nocveus_ which makes sense because she is one of the turians spirits of mortality and silence, an archangel and a judge. She is part of the hierarchy of spirits who govern the natural paths. Shepard resolves to call it the _Nocveus_ even if her people do not. The ship is gorgeous and honestly reminds her of the _Terminus_. She gets that “new vehicle smell” excitement from walking around her. No other starship is this well-thought-out and well-crafted to be both artistic and functional.

Shepard starts asking the engineers all sorts of questions about specifications, which seems to catch them off-guard. They definitely did not expect her to know so much terminology, but she does not blame them. It is not like Alenko and Williams have any engineering background to keep up with it; generally, most officers at her rank lack in-depth, STEM-related training after having focused so much time on their military careers. The more she asks the more excited she is to be working on this ship at all. They united all of the most impressive technologies she can think of and put them in one place.

She cannot help but notice the turian nesting pods as they pass by to reach the human quarters. Accommodations on the _Nocveus_ are ample. Each crew member receives their own sleeping capsule which doubles as and escape pod for emergencies. Space has been maximized without sacrificing structure or performance, and everything feels open.

The toroidal drive core really catches her attention and warms her heart. Her mind starts inventing a narrative in which Garrus was on the team of engineers that built this craft. It would explain why everything is so familiar, why it seems to take inspiration from a craft they designed together, and utilizes a technology they had accidentally discovered together.

“What are you thinking about Skip?” Williams breaks her from the reverie, “that smile only comes out when the planets all align.”

“You and your fucking astrology,” Shepard smirks and shakes her head. She gestures towards the core, “this is just amazing. They said it couldn’t be done and yet… he did it.”

“You’ve lost me there,” Williams replies, sounding a bit disappointed by her lack of knowledge.

“No offense – yeah I know – ‘full offense’, Williams, but you don’t exactly seem like the kind of person who reads scientific papers for fun. If you really want to know, look up _The Theoretical Yield Potential and Feasibility of Genus-1 Surfaces as Applied to Element Zero Drive Cores_.”

“That’s a fucking… mouthful,” Williams mutters. She looks down at her omni-tool and concentrates for a moment.

“No. Fucking. Way,” she looks up at Shepard with a stupid grin on her face, “Jesus Christ, Shepard! This was published _thirteen years_ ago! You’d have been, what, twelve or thirteen or so? What the hell are you doing _here?_ No offence…”

“Wow. To be perfectly fair Williams I didn’t _write_ the paper. We suggested the idea to a galactic-class starship engineer and she wrote it.”

“Still, Skip, that’s… so then this _Garrus_ figure, odd name for a human. Greek, maybe?” Williams narrows her eyes, “you two have a bit of… history… then? Did he build this ship with own two hands?”

Shepard glances over at her second-in-command, “I’d very much like to find out.”

* * *

For the first time in her life she seeks out a scribe because she wishes to emblazon a chapter about Delian’s impact on her life. It feels so vain, but she is afraid that he will be forgotten if she does not immortalize him on her plates in some way. She keeps it respectful of course. In the event that she does end up in the arms of another turian who she calls her mate, she cannot allow a memory to stifle someone else’s chance to share happiness with her. At the same time, she would want anyone close to her to know that this individual, this “Delian,” is part of her identity; someone to be thankful for.

While she has the opportunity, she also has Chapters inscribed about her family… just short ones. She does not want to have to explain them to anyone, but neither can she allow them to just cease to exist. Her physical form and her achievements are enough of a memory of her parents already.

She does not send him messages, and in return she receives silence. Communication here is monitored and she would rather stay on Val’ens’ good side while under his direction. She still thinks about how Delian must be holding up and hopes to the spirits that he is making his way to the top where he belongs. She wonders how many friendships end this way, but then she remembers that very few officers are abducted into an active Blackwatch assault team.

Her first rut after arriving is challenging because her notion of the was constructed around a feeling of safety, which makes her the only one to think this way. She joins a younger male in one of the upper sections who just strips off her waist wrap, flips her around, and enters her in one swift motion. She does not particularly enjoy it because she is not used to feeling cold while being taken, but she certainly feels better after he is through with her. He nods politely, thanks her amicably, and leaves her wondering what just happened. This interaction proves to be a microcosm of the greater attitude here, in which distance is maintained between teams but brotherhood is only cultivated within them. Perhaps she would have felt better if one of her squadmates had been at her back instead.

Quality of life with the Blackwatch team is significantly higher than in the barracks she left a year ago: they have more space, the most recent equipment, amazing food, and best of all, a respect for one another’s autonomy. Lanaai is quiet and well-behaved, so she manages to fit in with these troubled souls like a finely-crafted gear into an precise yet inaccurate mechanical timepiece. She finds the work equal parts fulfilling and condemning, and wonders if she is going to plummet or ascend when that final breath leaves her lungs and her spark fizzles out.

Over fifty drops, all successful, all clean. Lanaai is a ghost and a killer, and usually without even touching her weaponry. She and her mentor, Sicara Septimus, have become close as a result of their student-teacher dynamic during these deployments. However, Septimus is much more relaxed when they transition to off-hours and usually engages Lanaai with light conversation. The older woman, who is still quite young, is much more socially stable than Lanaai, so she usually asks the questions and gives Lanaai a entryway to speak about herself and her opinions. She is thankful for the support and the engagement, because it makes this place feel like home.

The other squadmates are certainly… there. She knows them all well and she could name them but what is the point? She can hardly remember her passing comments to them in the mess, the corridors, or the dormitory. They are all just so “respectful” that she does not integrate with them like she does with Septimus. They avoid speaking as much as she does, and if it were not for Val’ens and Septimus, they might all just disappear.

She quickly becomes sick of killing people on almost a weekly basis, so using her elevated tier and class, she requests an alternate posting that will focus more on research and development rather than launching into peril and slaughtering everything that moves. She does not expect Val’ens to approve of her request, but to her surprise he endorses her wishes to move on to a new path. He recognizes that her potential is faltering here when it could be so much more with the proper resources and teammates. In a message he expresses his gratitude and provides his seal of approval.

_Come here,_ “It’s been fantastic, love,” Septimus pulls her into an embrace.

_Don’t make me cry,_ “Likewise, sister,” she replies and smiles.

_Ah, look!_ “There’tis! The rare Acronus-brand smile. Anyway I wish you the best. I know you’ll make us all proud and we’ll certainly miss having you.”

_Spirits take you,_ “Thank you. It means a lot. I hope we’ll cross paths again,” _sincerely I do,_ Lanaai nods and boards her transport. Leaving behind this family does not sting nearly as much as leaving behind her mother and father, or Delian, or the Ivelus twins. Perhaps that means she is finally moving on from them as she should have long ago. She has work to do and she looks forward to working with her hands to learn and give rather than to tear and take away.

Her contract is to last for another three years, which means she will have some time to settle into a stable role before having the luxury to chose whether or not to move on. She wanted to be something when she left Tesarix’ care, but in very little time she changed so much. There is something about killing that makes her so sick and so relieved all at once. Perhaps this is how most turians feel but refuse to discuss.

Arriving at the mysterious undisclosed destination feels like yet another new beginning, and this time she hardly feels uncomfortable walking into the unknown. No living thing can scare her anymore after her missions and training with the Hierarchy’s very spirits of death. She settles down in her single nesting pod and greets her colleagues without giving them any information about who she really is or was. These people are motivated and passionate, young like herself, and she is perfectly fine with that. Her parents would have wanted her to end up surrounding by people like this who give her a sense of purpose and existence. The next several years are going to be okay.

* * *

Garrus immediately freezes when the other group enters the CIC. That cannot be _his Lia._ Garrus has extremely mixed feelings when he recognizes her there, armed to the teeth with the latest tech and weaponry. He has not seen her in seven years and she has become such a proper, filled-out woman now. But what the hell is she doing here in armor?

His excitement over seeing her again is quickly ices over with his disappointment that she has probably spent the better part of those seven years losing her way as well. She did not build this craft like he convinced himself she had. He had hoped she would follow her ambitions, but for whatever reason she diverted herself and went another way. She looks equally shocked to see him and probably thinks the same thing about him right now. And if he knows her, she is probably worried that now they will have to interact more. Lia is not a people person – she dislikes to be pressured into interactions outside of work.

_Why are you here, L’ia?_

Her name escapes his vocal cords quietly, but it is the breath he has been holding in all this time. Why does she have to be here?

Despite his surprise and internal conflicts, he is happy to see her at all after having resigned his hopes of seeing her again. She never does anything half-way. If she is here it means she is the best, and that he can trust her to have his back both on and off the field. She smiles a little at him and gives him a turian handshake in greeting. She speaks in his language, but she hardly seems like the same person he once knew.

But in all those hopes and wants to see her again, he never once considered what he would do if they were ever fulfilled. Now he has no idea what to do with himself.

She does not carry herself the same way, she barely even sounds the same. She looks similar enough, and smells the same, however. He does not even really know what to say. Does he ask her what she has been doing? Does he ask her anything? He is stunned into silence. She starts talking immediately about the ship and his mind snaps into normal interaction mode. Part of her is still recognizable.

“Garrus did you see they ripped us off back there?” she smiles at him, her eyes lighting up as she gestures in the general direction of the drive core. He knows her well-enough to know what she is referring to.

_There’s my girl,_ “Yeah I noticed. Looks like our new top priority mission – Operation: Lawsuit. I’ll call my lawyer.”

“I just can’t believe they figured it out, after we – well, your mom – basically proved it couldn’t be done.”

_I remember,_ “Maybe they’re messing with us – maybe that’s just a giant modern art sculpture made out of balled-up tinfoil. I know you’re a fan of modern art-”

“Well we aren’t dead yet, and this ship looks expensive-enough that I’ll believe that’s an actual toroidal core back there. And those Vircon III’s on the wings look real to me.”

“We have _four_ Vircon III’s?” _very impressive,_ Garrus trills a whistle, mimicking the human version, “looks like I won’t have any problems grilling up an extra-large, zesty-” he stops talking abruptly and looks around, suddenly remembering that the world exists around them. He had already forgotten. His squad and hers are all watching their interaction in silent shock.

“Apologies, Commander,” she addresses him formally, “This is my team – dammit where’s Joker? This is my team, Biotic Force Lieutenants Ashley Williams and Kaidan Alenko. Williams and Alenko this is Commander Garrus Vakarian.”

Garrus takes note of her two teammate’s names and prepares to meet more of them later. He thinks he saw her pilot drooling over at the helm, which must be the “Joker” she was referring to. He will have to learn how to share. Nissus is already getting antsy; she wants to get her hands on this ship as soon as possible.

“It’s a pleasure,” Garrus offers his hand to each of them, noting the hesitation.

“You two seem… familiar Skip,” the other female says quietly.

Garrus also notices how uncomfortable the other female – Lieutenant Williams – is around them. Her pass at Shepard’s assumed relationship with him which strikes him as rash.

He introduces his people to Shepard’s team. He is close enough to her now to notice just how far off her path she strayed. Marek would _not_ have wanted her to end up here, but he cannot tell her who she is supposed to be. Even Shepard probably did not want to end up here. Garrus is concerned about her motives for joining the Alliance.

“Commander Shepard” requests his presence so they can discuss what they plan to do from here. They have two commanders aboard this craft with no Captain, which is a really unusual way to set up a crew, so it is likely that they will discuss how to organize their command authorities and other rules they would like to enforce on their craft. This is their ship and they make the rules. They will not indulge their respective superiors by allowing this mission to turn into a standoff between species. Whoever assigned her to his team must have known about her past with him – there is no way the Alliance could _not_ have known about that.

He dismisses his squad to go settle into their quarters and do whatever the hell else they want until they are requested for field work. Nissus jumps over to the helm and sets herself down next to the human pilot and starts chatting him up instantly.

Shepard finds him and they begin to discuss the immediate problem.

“Do you think they are organizing a disaster? On purpose?” _to prove a point,_ he asks her.

“Probably. We’re… at least you and I… are going to show them that we’re capable of working together. Prove them wrong.”

“Where do you think this idea even came from?” _seems bizarre._

“Well… Bridge exists. Sen Prime exists. Those two colonies seem to be working out just fine… they _seem_ to. Honestly I’m just glad I get to work with turians. I don’t- never mind. I feel safer with a turian operator watching my flank than anyone else.”

“I’m flattered,” _same here._

“We’ll circle around to complaining about the premise of this crew later… so we are looking for missing colonies… what the hell do you think could be doing that? We don’t know of anything capable of that scale of… of… whatever it’s doing,” she shakes her head and frowns, “I’m not even sure where to begin. We have a list of ‘maybes.’”

_Start small, take manageable steps,_ “I think we should go for those sensor anomalies _way_ out towards the arms,” he suggests.

“No colonies out there,” she replies, still deep in thought.

_Of course,_ “Anomalies are anomalies. I mean these sensors are reporting something so massive that it’s either a malfunction, or something massive,” _suspicious to me._

“So we’re going to the edge of the galaxy on a hunch?”

_Why not?_ “Let me tell you about _hunches_ … they sure go well with sweet sauce and a side of _nollus._ ”

Shepard smiles and rolls her eyes at his stupid pun. He continues.

“Besides, what else are we going to do in the meantime? The missing colonies are already gone. The only way we can catch whatever is going in there would be to get there before it happens. That’s statistically… well ‘unlikely’ is an understatement. So sensor anomalies look like they have a better chance of telling a story than nothing at all,” _anything is better._

“Alright, I’ll agree to that,” she nods, “We sweep the more recently-affected items first. I’m going to plot out what data we do have and pretend that there is, in fact, a ten-kilometer-wide object floating around out there. Step two will be to check out the expected locale of that fucking thing.”

He cannot help but observe the way she sounds so in control of the situation and at ease with a leadership position. He thinks she would make a perfect turian, but he thinks she would probably feel it too much.

As they start talking they quickly diverge off the topic of the mission and start talking about what they have been doing this whole time. He notices, sadly, that she is so much colder now than before. She does not follow his lines like she used to or run with his humor in the same way. She has clearly repressed so much just to appear “more normal.”

“So Garrus… are you this _‘titan’_ I’ve been hearing about?”

He bristles. This is embarrassing. He has always found the alias to be a nuisance, despite the turians who genuinely respect him by that name.

_Don’t call me that,_ “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Shepard,” he starts carefully, “if you ever want to embarrass the spirits out of me, you can refer to me as… ’ _Titan.’_ I’m not a fan… but I won’t stop you.” He huffs indignantly, “My _squad_ doesn’t even call me that… and they never did!” _Please._

“Hey, brother, if it makes you uncomfortable then I won’t do it. I’m just interested as to why you got that nickname in the first place.”

“I’m not sure either,” he replies honestly, “but I’ve been told that I’m decent with a linear rifle,” _top ranked, among other things._

“Hey! There’s the Garrus I know,” she grins, “c’mon, look at you… selling yourself short. ‘Don’t mind me…’” she does her best to mimic his deeper voice, “‘…but I just dropped thirty people with six shots in under six seconds. No big deal.’”

“Oh, Shepard,” _spare me,_ he slathers on the sarcasm, “my ego can only get so big.”

“But seriously, I mean I know it’s corny, but obviously there’s a reason I heard some of the crew here talking excitedly about you. You can’t _invent_ skill.”

Their meeting turns into many hours, not that he minds. They are still waiting for clearance to leave port anyway so they cannot go anywhere just yet. They have both exchanged enough information to satisfy themselves. Garrus is bitter about it; he is even more bitter that, for whatever reason, he does not feel the same kind of excitement he used to.

He can remember a time when all he would do was think about her. Somewhere towards the end of that seven year period and enough recreational partners later and it had all but vanished. It is convenient because it means he will not be distracted, but he still wants to know why it happened. Lia has only grown more beautiful, sweet-smelling, intelligent, and _turian_. But she has become so much dimmer, ghostly – like as if at any moment she might just disappear.

* * *

Shepard cannot believe it; when they return to the CIC there he is. Her internal narrative is dashed against reality as it takes a moment to sink in that the team with which she will be working operates under Garrus’ command. She is going to be working _with Garrus_.

It has been _seven years._

Why is he _here?_

Not even as much as a message – either he did not have the time or the authorization, but really she just assumed he forgot she existed. People seem to forget about her quickly after she takes off to her next endeavor. Adam, Niko, and Marai are just a lonely memories.

But there he is: _Commander_ Garrus Vakarian, in all his badass, handsome glory. She is happy to see him and happy to know that he will watch her back, and she does not need to ask to know that he is the best of the best. She knew he would do it. She cannot stop herself from pulling him into an embrace. He gives no resistance and pulls her closer.

She wonders about why he looks so confused but she needs to find out what he thinks about this ship. It is the ship she feels like they would have designed if things had gone differently. It does bear a number of similarities with the last model they ever built together, a competition winner. She starts to dig out a part of herself she buried long ago and hoped never to see again. That part of her was, and still is, quite unstable. But Shepard knows that all this time it was only half-buried. She cannot stop herself now… now that she might have a chance again.

He has taken the tour, he has some amazing opinions about the ship and some snarky comments about the people they have already encountered. He is a lot stiffer than she remembers, but they are still on duty. Their onlookers look equally shocked by her interactions with Garrus.

Shepard introduces Garrus to her teammates. Williams makes a rather distasteful comment about how she seems so familiar with Garrus, which surprises Shepard; the comment is out of character for Williams because she usually avoids mentioning relationships around Shepard, as they have vastly differing opinions on what a relationship should look like. Shepard watches Garrus process the comment before choosing to ignore it and introducing her to his squad.

“Commander this is Tech Operator Altay Sidonis, Cover Geran Lo’kian, and Mobilities Tara Focos and Kaepler Quo’an. This is our pilot, Ti Nissus – please excuse her short attention span, she is the best pilot in existence.”

The smaller female scurries off when Garrus gestures to the helm, dismissing her from the group.

“Don’t be so sure Commander,” she smirks at Garrus, “Joker over there definitely holds that title.”

“Competition? Must be a damn good pilot if he impresses you, Commander,” he replies, “either they’ll be really good friends, or they’ll be even better enemies.”

Shepard drags her people forward to introduce themselves and shake hands with their teammates. They cannot hide behind her forever. Garrus is a commander – what a man. She can hardly pay attention to anything because she is thinking so hard about all the catching up they have to do. She needs to demonstrate to Garrus that she is capable and that he is allowed take her seriously.

Shepard takes a look at her briefing information. They have a list of places they need to go chase leads but no immediate summons. Anderson sent her a message earlier in the morning apologizing that he would not be able to be there to send them off, so she has no more obligations to remain in port.

Shepard dismisses her squadmates to go settle in so she can discuss some preliminary upkeep information with “Commander Vakarian.” Alenko and Williams give her this weird expectant look. She waves them off and Garrus dismisses his squadmates as well. As she leaves the CIC with her old friend, Shepard hears Joker’s rare laughter drift over from the helm which makes her smile. It sounds like Garrus’ pilot has done the impossible.

Shepard starts to talk about what they will be walking into and where he thinks they should go first. She already has some ideas based on the files they have received, and some leads looks more promising than others so she prioritizes them. She also wants Garrus to tell her what he has been doing all this time and catch her up. The juxtaposition of his sudden presence against the long absence has called attention to how much she missed him. And now that she has him back she wants him to stay. She wants to stay his, and then she wants to die before anything can change his mind and before she has live through losing him again. She also needs to know how far off the path he strayed and what the chances are that he is the same person she remembers. She is certainly not the woman he remembers… she cannot go back after Mindior.

The conversation moves quickly off the topic of actual planning and onto their various adventures. The more she talks to him, the more she realizes the differences in herself; but she feels so indifferent. She is used that indifference to get her through tough times, but now it has just spread to everything else and corroded it like hydrofluoric acid: delayed and deadly.

Shepard is not enthused by the idea of working with Garrus for personal reasons. She quickly came to realize during her time away from him that she was in love with a version of him which could no longer exist. She did her best to move on, but her obsessive nature forced her mind into certain paths. And now that he is here – more attractive and sharper than ever, it is like resurrecting those things she tried kill.

Shepard directs his attention to a very particular type of anomaly that she thinks is the most promising. It lies at the other end of the galaxy, so they will really get to test the speed of this craft. If her guesses are correct then they might find some massive structure over there. She half-hopes it actually _is_ some massive space station where all the missing colonists have been taken. At least then they will have a target they can take down and close off the problem; a single point of failure for the entire operation.

Garrus agrees with her. He announces that he will also start talking with their requisitions officer to verify for himself that their ship is properly stocked for a hybrid crew. He expects they might pick up some others as well – if they ever need to accommodate non-humans and non-turians they should be prepared.

Shepard returns to her sleeping pod and does her nightly routine. She falls asleep slowly and suffers through some ridiculous anxiety-ridden dreams. Mindior still haunts her and it always will. When she cannot get to sleep, she decides to just sit around in the mess hall for a while and read more about this ship. She finds the bed to be irritating and after a long time sleeping in turian-style nests she is uncomfortable. She moves her pod assignment over to one of the empty turian ones because she can. Just thinking about it brings relief to her back.

The largest turian on Garrus’ squad – the largest turian she has ever encountered – Lo’kian as she recalls, pads in at that moment and takes a seat across from her with a small pre-made meal. She is basically drunk with drowsiness so she hardly thinks twice when muttering a greeting in _Praexus_.

“What brings you here in the middle of the sleep cycle, brother,” she speaks quietly, breaking the drowsiness. She speaks to turians in _Praexus_ like a reflex, so she hardly notices she does it anymore. The translators will add on subharmonics wherever necessary, but they will not re-process the sound of her voice.

“I… uh… I was hungry – Commander. Ma’am,” he stammers. His voice pushes the air with low frequency vibrations. Despite how low it is, she finds it to be very pleasant.

“I could probably go for something myself,” she thinks about it for a moment, “mmm… better not. What do you think of the _Nocveus_ Lo’kian? Anything in particular that strikes you as good… not so good…?”

“Um… she’s a beautiful piece of machinery I guess. I hope. I really appreciate the pods they installed. After… complications with most turian nesting pods in academy the ones here are quite spacious.”

“I can imagine. How tall are you brother, two point four-ish?”

“Mmm… yeah last time I checked – good guess ma’am. Commander.”

“Some of the people I worked with had issues with the short mattresses, actually caused them spine problems.”

Shepard cannot stop smiling. Lo’kian is so shy for such a massive creature; he is adorable. This is the apex predator who whips around a fifty kilogram heavy-suppression automatic anti-material cannon like it weighs nothing, but here he is, stammering awkwardly as he tries to interact with her. It also takes him a very long time to realize she is not speaking through a translator. She learns a bit about his humble background – he learns about her… background; what she provides him, of course.

When he pads out she notices that he is not wearing anything except a waist wrap, and briefly admires the plates on his back before returning to her pod to gather her sparse belongings. The turian nest welcomes her and sinks into a powerful slumber, her body sucking it up eagerly. She is used to the feeling of drowsiness from sleepless nights. She has her morning tea which helps a little, but in a couple of hours she will crash and feel terrible. She had not gotten much sleep anyway.

The _Nocveus_ has an amazing gym for a craft of its size, fitted for both turians and humans. The machines are nearly the same but the weight ranges are vastly different. She goes ahead and does some generic forms to warm herself up for the rest of the day. She wants to get her hands on one of those mobility in Garrus’ squad and spar. They will be able to teach her a few things about hand-to-hand “off-the-books.”

“Williams, Alenko, feel free to go out into the rest of the ship and interact with people, you sad introverts,” she says sarcastically.

“Thank you, Skip,” Ashley snipes, still shaking off the sleep, “Good advice.”

“I woke up five minutes ago, Shepard,” Alenko sighs and drags himself out of his pod, “give me a moment.”

Shepard finds them after they leave the mess and talks to them to find out how they are settling in. They have hardly any comments because it is too early to tell, which she understands. The food is good, at least. Shepard jokes about how they have nothing much to say, sympathizing with the feeling because nothing has happened yet.

She proceeds to meet the rest of her operational crew, doing her best to learn names but knowing she will forget most of them. Joker is happier than she has ever seen him.

“Hey Shep!” Joker greets from his seat at the helm, “great ship you landed us. It’s like having control over that expensive skycar I’ve always wanted since I was like… six.”

“You can probably afford one after this gig as well,”

“The car?”

“No,” she replies, “the ship.”

“I fuckin’ wish,” he scoffs, “also your… uh… Commander Vakarian’s Pilot is insane!” his eyes light up, “she would be the one for me,” he jokes, “if she wouldn’t immediately shatter my glass bones. To be honest when I heard I was going to have to share control over the _Normandy_ I was a bit… super fucking angry. But oh man Shepard you should see some of the things Ti can do! I’m not even mad anymore.”

“I’m glad you’re getting along,” Shepard smiles at him. It brings her some degree of happiness to see him this happy. Throughout academy Joker had much the same attitude that she did. He never stopped working to prove that his brittle bone condition did not compromise his ability to be the highest-ranked pre-deployment pilot in the Alliance Navy. He had been fed up with hearing he could not accomplish what he ended up accomplishing anyway. The downward force he faced made him angry, upset, and depressed, but more than anything, it motivated him with unparalleled vigor.

So to see him content with something makes her hopeful that she might be able to have it as well. It allows her to see that such a thing might be possible in the first place for someone like her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count is changing as I decide to consolidate some shorter chapters into longer ones. I'm still taking too much time to make last-minute modifications when I know I shouldn't be.
> 
> Once again, thank you for those of you who take time to leave comments on this work. It means a lot to me.  
> Hopefully the updates are frequent-enough that this slow-burn will be worth the wait.  
> It is quite S L O W

After three years of hard work in the research and development department working on new drive systems and physical applications of field theory, she is notified via text message that her contract is being terminated early and replaced with a new one. The Hierarchy never has the courage to tell her this news face-to-face for whatever reason. She half-expected this, and perhaps the tension building up behind her crest was because she always knew this one good posting was never going to last.

– Year 09AΔ, Sec 08, Day 28 –

To Hierarchy Specialist with Distinction 80C-1A121C, Lanaai Acronus(λ) [3C]:

You are summoned to accompany and advise a group of agents in a recently-implemented imperative. Turian agricultural colony Aziren has gone dark and none of its occupants cannot be reached. Reconnaissance teams discovered the colony completely devoid of its turian populace with no signs of struggle nor any evidence that mass exodus had been planned for. This cataclysm is immensely concerning and we need your skill set for this mission. Your mixed training makes you an invaluable asset to this team. We apologize for the short notice, but we hope you understand our concerns.

To facilitate your leadership on this deployment, your class has been changed to ω, and your tier raised by thirty, placing you in 1Ε. You will have command over a team of specialists like yourself, and will be provided with a new reconnaissance vessel: The _Derilus._ Additional details are available in the attached documents.

Spirits guide you.

She chuffs at the insane rank and tier inflation; the Hierarchy must really be desperate. The problem does sound quite perplexing however, and on that premise alone she is willing to move forward. Turian colonies do not simply “go dark” without putting up a fight, and their inability to do anything en masse without _paperwork_ would create a paper trail several kilometers wide. It must be some kind of biological weapon then, because the only reason a turian colony would be unable to fight would be due to uncontrollable debilitation.

Biological weapons are insidious and she has an acute hatred for them. She is particularly intolerant of those who would wield biological weapons for their own gain, and she assumes her file mentions something about that. It would make sense, then, for her to be on the Hierarchy’s top list for evangelical sympathizers if she is to hunt down a potential terrorist organization deploying biological agents to render entire colonies lifeless.

But something about it just sounds all wrong. Logistically, it should not even be possible even with some miraculous biological agent. In order to steal that many bodies, a fleet the size of the quarian flotilla would have to descend upon the colony, and as far as she knows, it would be physically impossible to creep into atmosphere without appearing on colony sensor networks. No cloaking technology exists that can cover an entire fleet. Lanaai realizes that she has sent back the message, confirming her new role, only after she finishes turning the gears over in her head.

On to another new life. Her own ship and team… she never thought she would arrive here, but she is ready.

* * *

They plot a course to their only promising lead. Alliance-deployed scanners have been detecting star brightness differences which differ too much to be considered natural. They see this type of data pattern occur when the Citadel occludes its local star. They joke about a Citadel-sized structure way out on the galactic rim that no one has discovered yet, but they do not have their hopes up. More likely, it is some kind of debris or pseudo-planet just drifting through.

In the meantime Garrus wants to know what Shepard has learned about hand-to-hand. He wants to learn what she has accomplished with her “engineering career.” He wants to know that, despite the bitter coldness, she makes up for it in every other way. Maybe that way he can figure out how to bring her back. And maybe now that they have the freedom, he can start pursuing her as a potential partner. Humans have a different procedure, so he will have to take his time. Wait for now.

The turian nesting pods in the _Nocveus_ are packed together to save space and can double as escape vessels. Humans have similar pods, shaped slightly differently. For sanitary and personal reasons, the Hierarchy always provides singular pods in starships, even if the pods are grouped into a shared space. Even as one of the commanders of this ship he receives the exact same amount of space as any other turian. He knows Shepard’s case is the same. The designers of this craft gave all crew members an average of more space by taking out what would have been the commanders’ personal quarters.

With some degree of amusement he notices that Shepard re-assigned her sleeping quarters to a turian pod down the hall from his. She must have found the human bed to be too uncomfortable. She probably had a difficult time adjusting during her military training. The turian pods just have more space in general, which he admits is slightly unfair.

At least his teammates are getting along well with the human crew here. Nissus seems content with how she and Shepard’s pilot, “Joker”, have organized who does what. He walks into the mess hall just as she recounts her tales of piloting feats to rival Joker’s.

“…we had to get a shuttle through a ravine to avoid being spotted and at some points it was too narrow for the craft – at least width-wise,” Nissus explains to Joker.

Joker grins and finishes for her, “oh I see where this is going… so you hit the emergency RCS and whipped on through there sideways. I love doing that with greenies in the back – they shit themselves _every time_.”

Nissus barks out a laugh. Garrus remembers what she was talking about because he had been in the shuttle at the time. By that point, all of his squad knew what she was capable of and expected they might be jostled a bit in the interest of staying hidden.

He can tell they are getting along. Nissus has always been the most “out there.” She comes from an obscure colony where the rules are different. Her family was never wealthy so she had to cope with living on scraps until her academy years where she proved to be far more skilled than anyone else. She was also the most reprimanded – her superiors never demoted her, but they yelled at her constantly for applying back-pressure to terrible orders and pulling “dangerous stunts” with her vehicles. Garrus had quickly learned it is not luck for her, it is skill.

Garrus checks in on the rest of his squad and meets the operational crew. They are a mixed bunch, more humans than turians, and much like himself, they have all had their hopes and dreams beaten out of them and they will serve loyally despite the awkward proximity. These turians have been hand-picked to serve with this crew because they have been rated “least-likely to start a riot with the human crew.” Garrus notices that a couple of them are from Bridge, but he does not recognize them.

He finds it suddenly odd that it has been half a cycle and he still has not encountered Shepard once. He smells traces of her scent all over the place, like he no matter where he goes in this ship he has just missed her.

On his way to spar with Quo’an and Focos, he finally runs into her in the gym as she works through her nightly process. Shepard watches them intently as they begin. She is no stranger to watching turians spar, but he cannot help but notice how different it seems as she analyzes all of their movements carefully, understanding exactly where to look and what to look for. When they were younger, she would watch him and his parents spar before Second if she happened to be over, but she never seemed this focused. He offers her a quiet greeting and steps onto the mat to spar with Focos.

When Garrus ducks out after Focos exhausts him, the real fun begins as the two fastest beings on this ship start to exchange strikes at full speed. Shepard lights up as she watches them tear around – it is a sight most humans never get to see in person. It is the sight that would convince even the most adept human martial artist that turians are truly a force to be reckoned with. Quo’an finally pulls Focos into a pin and she chooses to bow out, thanking him. That is when Shepard steps onto the mat.

* * *

Shepard is in the middle of her heavy set when Garrus and his two mobility walk in geared up to spar, or rather, geared down to spar. Turian sparring garb is a simple wrap around the waist, talon and fringe caps, and _nothing else_. She has long moved on from finding nudity uncomfortable, at least with turians; humans still make her uncomfortable.

This is her chance to solicit some lessons out of one of them. She wants to see how well her turian martial arts experience holds up. Garrus faces the female, Tara Focos, first. His form is perfect but so is hers. Their speed is insane. He holds his own and eventually ducks out, gracefully accepting his limit.

Quo’an hops in and it really ramps up. She cannot stop the goofy grin from spreading as she watches the two fastest things alive fly around the mat. It is so much faster than she has ever had experience with – her turian instructor from training must have been going easy on her every time. When Focos leaves the ring after a pin, Shepard steps in. She wants to move. She wants to see how long she will last.

“Humor me, brother,” she says as steps onto the mat. She eyes him – he really does look a lot like Garrus, “I would like to learn and improve.”

Quo’an nods to his commanding officer. Shepard knows that he is an expert, and that he will have no issues slowing down his movements while maintaining perfect form. She settles into the familiar mode and clears her head. Quo’an does not even wait because he is already warmed up, so she plays defensively. She has no choice but to play defensively, rather.

His movements are indeed slower than they were just a moment ago, but still all she can do is remain on the defensive because he never leaves himself open. It is good practice, though, to watch him move and try to predict where he will go next. She is able to throw his weight around, but only a little. Finally she is whipped to the ground and pinned instantly before she can react. He breathes out slowly onto her neck. She taps out, nursing her sore trapezius and deltoids. She thanks Quo’an for his cooperation.

“Thank you Quo’an,” she smiles at him and accepts his hand.

“Spirits, Lia, you can really move,” Garrus compliments, “nice form as well. Quo’an was really starting to have to try.”

“I’ve never seen a human move that fast,” Quo’an agrees. She hates compliments because she does not know what to do with them, especially when they are unwarranted. But she is heaving air into her lungs so she cannot reply anyway. She just shakes her head and watches Garrus’ mandibles slacken a bit. Quo’an looks a little confused about her reaction.

She just gestures towards the showers and then leaves them there. Afterwards, she goes and eats in the mess hall by herself – none of the other crew in the mess are brave-enough to sit down with her. Then she heads to her workspace and goes over the itinerary Garrus has prepared. She goes through and compiles a list of additional clearance documents and intelligence to add details she feels he left out, but he was so thorough that she barely makes adjustments.

Anderson talks to her again just before they leave, reminding her with a canned-sounding speech that this mission is important for the future of human-turian collaborations; she already knows that. Shepard does not linger to ask him if he truly believes in what he is telling her, because she already knows he has a certain disdain for the Alliance as well. Most of her superiors do, in fact. She does not subscribe to conspiracy theory nonsense, but her the constant sense of dread while working with very high-ranking Alliance personnel must be present for a reason. If she has to be afraid to speak about why she fears “Atlas,” then something is definitely wrong.

Luckily they are headed across the Milky Way, far away from her problems, to the fringes of one of its arms to investigate an anomaly detected by one of the scanners out there. She expects that they will not find anything because anomalies are usually just sensor noise, but at the same time she hopes this will be the lead they need.

* * *

Garrus has no idea what to expect, but Quo’an agrees to ease up to humor her. Shepard’s form is very refined and she has managed to become much faster than he has ever seen a human move. He can tell she worked with a turian master of techniques by the way she moves and where she looks for movement cues. As Quo’an poises to take her down she can predict where he will be and manipulate him to the best of her abilities.

But Quo’an is impossible to topple. He speeds up more and more, but that does not seem to affect Shepard, who just speeds up with him. Her eyes flicker and her muscles twitch. Kaepler cannot get a hold of her while she remains exclusively defensive. Finally Quo’an is a little too quick and pins her in a one swift motion. It is over, but Garrus has seen enough to know that she is not Lia Shepard anymore; she is _Commander_ Shepard. Quo’an had to start trying towards the end, and she held him off anyway. He wonders if any of the other humans on board know about this.

He compliments her on her skills and she just shakes her head between deep breaths, looking disappointed. She heads off to shower and change. Then, knowing her, she will eat by herself and then retreat to her workstation to review his proposed itinerary and perform other administrative maintenance this mission needs in order to run smoothly. He considers going with her, but she looks like she needs some peace and quiet right now.

She will never complain about her loneliness even if it is so clear. She will never talk about it and risk making it someone else’s problem. Marek’s final words caused him to finally piece together why she behaves the way she does. His greatest concern is that he cannot say anything about it because no one would believe him and Shepard would just deny it. Garrus needs to keep a close eye on her before she goes and destroys her life. _She isn’t even supposed to be here._ There is too much potential. He needs her too much.

They leave a few cycles later after obtaining clearance. Victus talks to him once more about the importance of this craft and their mission, even though he does not need to hear about it again. Their performance here will have implications about the future collaborations between turians and humans… he is not so sure about that.

They travel for a couple of periods out to the edge of the Milky Way. They have to jump through the existing relay network which is relatively quick and takes just days with this ship, but once they reach the limits of the network, they must rely on a standard zero-mass compression field, rather than by the much faster dimensional compression corridor opened by the mass relays. At least the toroidal drive core is unreasonably powerful so their craft is faster than any other known and “unknown” – experimental Hierarchy craft which existed briefly only to be decommissioned.

The crew have been getting along just fine so far. And, to his delight, the Hierarchy spared no expense finding the best chef available. He is not entirely certain about the Alliance-supplied officer, but the human crew is not complaining. Terrible food means everyone feels terrible and performance suffers. The turian officer, an older gentleman named Arex Caromedus, is still adjusting to the way humans interact with their sustenance officer.

For the human contingency, the culinary specialist does not really hold any military rank or command over the soldiers. Rupert Gardner laughs and jokes with his fellow human crew and attempts to do the same when turians come by. For turians the sustenance officer rank holds military rank over most high-ranking officers. They tend to sit two or three ranks below the highest-tiered commanding officer on board. They can give out orders in times of crisis and they are treated with the respect that comes with their rank.

All sustenance officers must have completed advanced military training; it takes a great deal of work to earn the title and the privilege to serve. So the contrast is shocking to the poor older turian, who now has to put up with happy, talkative humans who see him is a “cook” rather than a highly-trained and well-decorated warrior of Palaven, who had to go a step further to develop his culinary skill.

Garrus hears about Shepard from Sidonis as they chat in the mess hall. He seems like he is impressed that she knows so much about electronics and the technical details of what it means to “hack” something. He has to remember that people who meet her will automatically assign her a stereotype and then become impressed when she is inevitably the opposite. Garrus is familiar with what she is capable of, but others will assume she knows nothing outside of giving orders and destroying things.

 _Quite the female,_ “Commander Shepard really knows what she is talking about. She’s making my life too easy all of sudden. With you as the only notable exception, I’m not used to superiors who make it simple for me to do my job. I’m impressed,” _truly, I am._

 _What did you expect?_ “Why is that Sidonis?” Garrus asks him, trying to see if he can invent an explanation.

 _Oops,_ “Well… um… because I didn’t…” he trails off.

 _She speaks your language,_ “…she’s a bit smarter than you thought?” Garrus finishes, amused. Sidonis’ head tilts back a bit, showing off his neck in embarrassment. He has been caught applying stereotypes.

 _I know her,_ “She tends to do that,” Garrus grins as he thinks about her. Sidonis does not bring it up any more after that.

When they arrive within the area of the sensor reporting the anomaly and perform their own scan, they detect nothing. So they came all the way out here for nothing. Shepard is disappointed and Garrus is disappointed. They vent their irritation about it: Shepard shouts and gesticulates while Garrus snipes and snarks.

They quickly go off topic.

“Listen, Garrus,” she lowers her voice as if someone might hear them, despite the fact that they are locked in their meager private meeting space that he had Sidonis scour for bugs, “I’m not… a fan of the Alliance and I don’t entirely trust them after staying on Earth. Maybe we had it too good on Bridge, but humans from Earth are… I don’t really know how to say this… brainwashed? Maybe? The Alliance indoctrinates people. I wouldn’t put it past them to slip a _siel decurrs_ into our crew to attempt to steal Hierarchy secrets.”

Shepard genuinely surprises him with her concern. Garrus knows about the concept of this – turians have had problems with “moles” in the past, but it is much sparser. The innate turian sense of honor mitigates it, but turian spies can advance so far into a farcical character that they become impossible to spot.

 _We will keep an eye out,_ “I think that may be an overreaction, but I trust you, Shepard. I will keep that in mind when speaking with our crew. I doubt the same is true for the turians here, but… while turians are terrible liars… _trained_ turians are _perfect_ liars,” _there is no way to tell._

Turians are terrible liars because their little subconscious reactions give them away easily: a subharmonic shift, a change in scent, the slight raise of the fringes or twitching of the mandibles etc… But there are some turians who are born with much less instinctual pull, so they can control all of this at once. In general, turians cannot spot the behavioral tells of a well-crafted and well-trained facade, especially if that individual is above them in rank or tier.

When he begins to feel the pressure build up behind his plates, rutting feels vastly more uncomfortable knowing that Shepard is on the board the same ship. He enjoys it more than he used to, after the immersion into pure-turian culture changed his attitude towards it, but he still cannot quite shake the feeling. He knows her routine enough to know where she generally is and how to avoid her at all costs when propositioning one of the female turians to rut. He still cleans himself of any traces of scent out of compulsion.

He proceeds to meditate, bringing himself down to a truly-relaxed state. The rutting just shuts his body up, but his mind will continue to reel unless he forces it to. The more he thinks about it the more he cannot figure out what his hesitation is about working things out with Lia. Perhaps it is because she deserves a proper relationship? Or because humans treat relationships differently?

He does not want to use her for his own relief and he does not want to make her impossible promises. He never wants anyone to _use_ her for any reason, in fact. She understands turian culture, though, so he would never have to worry about miscommunication. Lia has so much control over her outward-facing emotions that no amount of signaling from her body could convince him that she truly wants him in the way he wants her.

* * *

The week and half it takes to reach their first point of interest feels like a long time. She slowly desensitizes to Garrus’ presence. She cannot stop looking around the turian crew and noticing all the attractive turian females here, wondering which of them he has rutted and disliking herself for being bothered by something he cannot control and has very little meaning to him. He seems to be in the same mood most of the time so she can only assume that he has a steady supply of relief. She gets it – he is not exactly unattractive by anyone’s standards. In fact, he is one of the most attractive people she has ever seen.

In the meantime she talks with Sidonis about his tech background and inquires about what they think they can do in advance to make their mission more efficient.

“Officer Sidonis,” she greets him at his workstation. He looks up at her with his golden eyes and inspects her. She can tell what he is thinking because she knows that expression. Of the people on Garrus’ team, she has interacted with Sidonis the least, which she wants to rectify. He is an intelligent individual and he possesses an enormous, not to mention dangerous, body of knowledge regarding demolitions, technical computer programming, and electronics. Garrus really has figured out how to find the most skilled people and put them in the right place.

“How can I help you Commander?” he asks her. His voice is higher and has an interesting texture to it. He speaks with a great deal of sibilance; it is almost feminine. He must be a φ, which would explain his slender form and softer features, and makes him one of only two on board.

“We are approaching an array of some archaic human deep-space sensors, the ones that seem to have spotted something. I want to organize a list of development items and materials that you might need to preempt scraping information from them.”

“Um…” she sees him thinking about worded what he wants to say in a way that “she would understand.”

“Sidonis,” she begins, “please speak freely – I have an engineering degree and I want to hear all of the details. I can’t help unless I know exactly what you need.”

He hesitates a bit, “alright, Commander… Ordinarily when I go about scraping data I have to exploit security vulnerabilities in the operating system – because there is no such thing a secure operating system. So I will need to know some information about those sensors to preempt anything.”

“From what I’ve read they are Gemini Gen 2’s running an _early_ version of senOS. A precursor. Several decades old. Still, that’s your standard DECT instruction set with all of the known security exploits of senOS. Also once you blast your way into ring zero, you’ll need the database storage architecture… which I have to check. I think it’s probably something equally terrible like GDB, you know… before version ten which fixed a bunch of the structural problems with it.”

Sidonis stares at her for a second and it looks like he has to replay what she said a couple times in mind. He shakes his head a bit and his eyes focus on her again.

“So that’s good,” he nods, “I’ve worked with the DECT instruction set before… but not senOS. Sounds like a mess to me. I’ll need to acquire a VM and scout it out.”

“I can get that for you,” Shepard starts to make notes on her omni-tool, “I’ll also make sure you get the same version of GDB they have on there so you familiarize yourself. I’m sure you’ve worked with later versions, but this is so terrible that they attempted to wipe it off the face of the net.”

“Damn, must be a good time,” he mutters.

“You know it is. So how did you become familiar with DECT? That’s not exactly a turian-made instruction set. And it’s embedded so it’s not even widely available to consumers.”

That starts him talking about his colony upbringing. She can fill in some information based on his markings – his clan is small and not very wealthy. The clan’s tier is very low and most turians would be unable to recognize his markings.

“We grew up as nomads: me, my older brother, and my parents – both of whom were and still are starship mechanics. My brother… never mind. They just managed to land the jobs after many years scraping the bottom and working as mining techs.”

Sidonis does not look particularly comfortable speaking about his past. Shepard considers intervening to let him off the hook, but he continues talking.

“I had a lot time to tinker and mess about when I was little… my parents would always bring us scrap and rejects from their day jobs. I think… I think they wanted to inspire us to become creative and curious so my brother and I could escape our cycle of poverty. My foray into assembly languages and hacking started as an obsession to have more information and know more about my environment… to feel safer.”

He seems to be picking up some confidence and explains the answer to the question she was about to ask.

“Some of the starships my family would stay on were human-built and they almost always included components using embedded systems based off the DECT instruction set. I would ‘circumvent’ security clearances to obtain telemetry from the ship and gain access to the net to learn more. This is what I did to occupy my time because… because I had no friends to play with.”

“Sounds rough,” she frowns and her brow creases. She wished she had the tact to describe how unfortunate his childhood seemed to be, but she never has and never will, “Are you happy here, at least?”

“Definitely, Commander.”

“Please, Lia or Shepard. We have names here.”

Shepard is happy that he has forgotten that she is supposed to be the big, dumb commander. She finds him easy to listen to and equally easy to ask questions to. It also seems like he could use the company; people with his level of technical expertise tend to share very little with others. His largely solitary childhood has left him wanting for someone to hear what he has to say. She suspects that being a φ also comes with some social complications that alienate him from his peers.

She starts the requisitions processes to get him what he needs. She offers him her ear if he ever needs someone to talk to. He thanks her and she leaves him to his work.

“I can’t believe we’re working for the _butcher_ ,” a human female voice floats across the hall, just barely a whisper. Shepard cannot see who it belongs to because they are outside her line of sight. It is in passing, and obviously she was not meant to hear it, but the cocktail party effect is powerful. She can hardly believe she is hearing this.

“Don’t talk about that shit around here!” comes the whispered reply.

It makes her uneasy, especially when that moniker should not have reached this far. She starts to harbor some feelings of distrust for her human crew as a result. She can trust Williams, Alenko, and Joker because she knows them personally, but these other Alliance personnel worry her. She becomes increasingly paranoid about the likelihood that some of these crew report to Alliance cells with the express purpose of gaining access to Hierarchy secrets. She already dislikes trusting people because nothing should be taken for granted, a reality she awoke to understanding when her father died.

The United Western Systems government has separate branches and corruption runs rife among its ranks on Earth, so they would not be above creating invisible organizations to allow one branch to weasel its way into another. Atlas is allegedly tied to them, but she does not quite know the extent. It is one of the reasons why she dislikes dealing with her people so much.

When they arrive and scrape the sensors, Shepard is intensely disappointed by the lack of salient results. They check the sensors in the area and find nothing else of note, so they have no reason to stay out here either. She looks through her files again to make sure they have not missed a more promising maneuver and finds the list rather dry. There are few leads available when everyone from those colonies is completely gone.

Alliance command already has teams of people contacting relatives and gathering data, all of which is useless. Everyone agrees that the disappearances are unexpected and terrifying but no one has anything better than speculations to offer. They might as well return to a populated area to get the ship serviced – Garrus has identified what could become a terrible problem in their heat sinks if not addressed now. So far, their craft having operational trouble is proving more interesting than this glorified patrol.


	13. Chapter 13

Garrus finds it rather ironic that he is the first to hear about some new intelligence from Alliance monitors. It is the middle of the night cycle when most humans are still sleeping and just before most turians have woken up from their much shorter rests; the comms team must have forwarded this to him once they noticed his omni-id status changed to “awake.” He debates whether or not to wake up Shepard and tell her about it immediately.

An Alliance mining outpost on a large asteroid has reported several unusual disruptions with communications and they fear it might be foul play. They are requesting backup before they are cut off entirely. He makes note of it and goes back to removing the burned-out capacitor from his weapon’s mass field regulator.

About two hours later, once he finishes troubleshooting the repair, fixing other issues, and cleaning up he notices a second update: the outpost has now lost all comms and the asteroid itself has deflected into an interception trajectory with the local human colony world. It will kill hundreds of thousands of people when it impacts and leave the planet completely uninhabitable.

They leg it – this event happened close to their sector which means they clear the gap in just thirty-two hours, spending all that time planning and losing sleep. They have no intel about why the outpost went dark and other information about the outpost is locked away by the Alliance. Garrus is irritated that they are denied the access to more detailed black-box telemetry which would give them a strategic advantage. It is almost as if the Alliance is trying to hide something.

Shepard also cannot obtain access, even with her clearances and the people she knows. They only receive some schematic data. Shepard eventually gets on a call with someone on the Alliance side of things and yells at them for a while before they finally collect just the slightest bits of additional documentation. He hears her checking to be sure they should even be going down there if the Alliance refuses to provide them with a more detailed briefing.

“Of course they would like to hide something!” Shepard exclaims irritably, “they fucking-”

She abruptly stops herself from talking. Garrus is about to inquire further but she continues.

“Never mind… If they have something to hide, it won’t matter when we get down there. And if they have something to hide from the _Hierarchy,_ then they should fucking know better than to send down a half-human, half-turian crew,” she bites out after she finishes her call.

_I agree,_ “If it’s anything like how the Hierarchy works then there’s so much red tape anyway that it won’t matter what we find and what evidence we have. It seems like they just want the problem solved as soon as possible and we happen to be in the area,” _it doesn’t matter who we are,_ he suggests, trying to calm her down. He hates it when her mood is sour.

“Yeah,” she replies, “but that’s such a shitty attitude. Then they should be sending in evac teams or proper Alliance infil teams – not some _experimental_ crew. Not to suggest that we aren’t capable.”

They are going down in two squads: Shepard will take her two people and Garrus will bring Focos, Quo’an, and Sidonis. This will be a close-quarters operation, but he knows he will need Sidonis’ tech prowess and demolitions expertise in case they need to scrape data or take control over systems… or leave in a hurry. They have assumed the asteroid has an attached propulsion system which they can redirect – whoever or whatever was messing with the communications went down there to use the asteroid as a weapon.

“But… why?” Shepard wonders aloud to Garrus after attempting to deduce a motive.

_No idea,_ “I’m wondering the same thing. Terrorists would have attempted to extort resources from the Alliance unless they are… super terrorists. Or brainwashed zealots or something. Zz… zzamm… zabmies,” _like in one of your horror films,_ he puzzles.

Shepard barks a laugh and shakes her head, “you remember that now, of all times. Garrus, it better _not_ be zombies or you owe me a Taetran.”

The humans prefer to take just three people per squad while he has no qualms about bringing his entire troupe if needed, but they have no use for a cover on this mission. Garrus does not want to risk Lo’kian’s life if he does not have to. Joker will stay aboard the _Nocveus_ and Nissus will provide transport and CAS if absolutely necessary. Garrus advises that they gear up in full hardsuits for spacewalking in the event that the outpost has no power and they have to fight their way through a zero-gravity, zero-atmo environment.

* * *

Shepard piles into her nesting pod after a long day of nothing and curls up, quickly drifting off and expecting the next cycle to be just as uneventful. But her mind ha other ideas and brings her an outlandish dreamscape over which she has no control, as always.

She is standing around in what appears to be some kind of outpost in the middle of a jungle on a remote planet. She cannot recognize any telltale patterns of stars to place herself in any general locus, and her omni-tool claims there is no signal. The last available coordinates are all blurry anyway. She is here alone, but the clutter and the equipment lying around suggests otherwise. Where did her team go?

A massive white block of… some kind of smooth stone draws her attention and the entire camp seems to circle around it, as if encouraging her to approach it. She approaches the object cautiously, seeming to cover ground non-linearly while the object grows into a massive tower, and catches her reflection in it once she arrives – a turian stares back. She does not find this surprising, and when she looks down at her hands, they are human. Nothing here seems particularly out of place except the monument itself. She checks to see if her team is ready to pull her back if things go sideways and receives a nod from a female turian several paces back.

Suddenly the monument grabs them and hurls them into the nearest star where her chest begins to burn and breathing becomes painful. Her blood turns to gel and she begins to cough up magma and shrapnel.

She wakes up suddenly when her shoulders are gently nudged. She attempts to bolt upright but a hand holds her chest down from moving up too quickly. She heaves air in through her lungs and forces her sense into alignment so she can gather her surroundings.

“Spirits! There you are” she hears Garrus purr. How did he get in her nest with her?

“Lia we have a problem,” he holds the datapad in front of them both in the cramped space, “aside from your obvious nightmare… which I’m going to pry about at some point. But that’s not what we’re talking about.”

“Shit, dammit,” she replies groggily. Problems bother her when they wake her up in the middle of her sleep cycle like this. She issues a huff of irritation as he explains the circumstances. He tells her that he already ordered his pilot to take them to this stray asteroid as soon as possible.

“Good,” she says yawning and reaching for her omni-tool, “proactive Garrus is my favorite Garrus,”

“I wasn’t aware there was more than one of me. Also, Lia, if you want to talk you know I’ll list. You _know,_ that.”

“Can I go back to sleep now?”

“I’m tempted not to let you, based on your adverse reaction to it.”

“Out, I’ll talk to you in the morning,” she grumbles and turns over in the nest. Still, she sighs when he seems to levitate out of her pod and sucks his warmth with him.

When she finishes reading through the report in the morning and sparring with the Alliance about details, Shepard is angry that her superiors refuse to cough up information that she needs in order to plan an effective strategy. Detailed schematics, sensor data, manifests etc… It does not sit right with her that the Alliance wants her team to go in there to stop an asteroid the size of a dwarf planet from slamming into the local human colony world, but they do not want her to know anything about it.

She has a “chat” with Anderson and whoever is unfortunate-enough to be in the room with him at the time, which includes Admiral Hackett. Anderson and Hackett remain unfazed by her ire and respond calmly while the additional officers look horrified. At least her tirade manages to buy her some very plain schematics – but they have been clearly redacted. She is about to lose her damned mind.

“Listen, if we do not receive more information I am rightfully obligated to refuse to take up this mission on the grounds that it endangers my turian counterparts and goes against our established peaceful terms. And half a million human lives will be lost in _your_ names, not mine,” she threatens to decline the mission, which she is allowed to do at her rank.

That earns her _slightly_ more. It will have to do, because she really does not want this asteroid destroying hundreds of thousands of lives. Even if she is not technically responsible, it will forever weigh on her conscious that she could have stopped it but chose not to.

When they arrive they engage the full extent of the _Nocveus’_ stealth capabilities and take a moment to scan the surface of the asteroid for more information. They immediately spot the energy discharge from the massive vectored fusion torches placed around the surface of the asteroid. Shepard is not happy about that. Where are they getting their power from? Fusion torches require enormous power banks so the apparent lack of sufficient power is immediately suspicious. That outpost is obviously hiding something.

They speculate that it could be a large amount of refined element zero below the surface. Garrus runs the calculations in his head and comes up with a number that everyone has to double-check… but he is right on: the quantity of eezo required to power all the torches down there would be completely illegal and would invoke the wrath of council intervention. No wonder the Alliance wants this covered up.

And now there are four turians who know about this, and there is nothing she can do expect ask them politely to keep humanity on the galactic council.

They keep their speculations to themselves. Shepard is now extra-paranoid about the possible presence of moles amid the human crew. If the Alliance can easily lie about creating unethical war-crime-worthy element zero weaponry, then there is literally nothing stopping a bribe from placing a mole into a rather secure and high-integrity environment.

“Sidonis,” she greets him and is almost amused by the sudden jolt of his head towards her.

“Commander. Shepard, sorry. What’s the latest?” he asks her amicably, knowing that she has something on her mind from her tone.

“I am probably overreacting, but I’m very concerned about possible _siel decurrs_ on our crew,” Shepard uses the turian translation for “mole” so he does not have to look up what she means, “human or turian it doesn’t really matter. But more likely human.”

“Why is that?” he asks sounding genuinely concerned now. He knows that if she is concerned he also has reason to be concerned.

“I just… how do I put this? I just don’t fucking… _trust_ the Alliance. I guess. And from experience I can tell that an operation like this is too good to pass up. Hierarchy Special Operations and Alliance specialists working together – it’s a perfect opportunity to steal sensitive information. And the Alliance doesn’t exactly have a good track record identifying private interest group infiltrations. Humans aren’t exactly the most honorable creatures, Sidonis.”

He buzzes dismissively, as if declining to comment, “So… what are you proposing?”

“I am authorizing you to tap all network traffic for malicious or anomalous communications. Ideally we never see this information and let a neural net or a heuristic algorithm sort it out… but _siel decurrs_ tend to do their best to appear inconspicuous.”

“Isn’t that a bit…” he searches for the correct word to use, most likely a negative one. She does not have to wait for him to say it to know what he wants to say.

“Yes, yes, I know. It is,” she continues instead, “and ordinarily I would completely condemn this type of thing. But the information we might encounter while on this craft… it’s just too dangerous. Humans have an extremely reliable history of weaponizing just about anything they can and then bragging about how many people they would be able to kill with it. I won’t let my people do this to yours, or anyone else. And I will be the first line of defense.”

Sidonis looks at her with a blank expression.

“Say those sensors out there really have spotted some massive object… Say that turns out to be the one true doomsday device… if anyone here reports that to a cell, it’s all over. Even right now – we’ve been ordered to go in, blindfolded willingly by _my_ superiors. They seem to find no issue putting this entire crew in danger for what amounts to their fuckup. The galaxy is a terrible fucking place, Sidonis.”

“How _optimistic_ of you, Commander,” he turns his eyes back to his workstation for a moment. Shepard’s amusement gets the better of her. Sarcasm is really difficult to turians to understand so his worthy attempt absolutely jars her.

“If I could, I’d promote you for pulling that stick out of your ass, brother.”

“I’ll send you a message once I get the systems prepped. Then we can start talking about algorithms and black-boxing.”

“Sounds good. And keep to this yourself would you? I trust you over anyone else, Sidonis, it’s why I came here first. Well… you and Gar- Vakarian. I’ll go speak to him about this separately when we have some more time.”

More time… once this mission is completed they _will_ have more time.

In the following cycle the seven of them prepare to drop onto the asteroid. Shepard is excited because this is the first time she will be in the field with _her Garrus_.

* * *

These last two years have been nothing but a glorified grind for evidence and a wild _xaan_ chase to determine the cause of these missing turian colonies, of which there are now three. _Three!_ And worse, command has informed her that human colonies are also disappearing in much the same way, but in greater quantity. If anything, the turians are lucky that they have not had _ten_ colonies’ populaces go completely missing.

She and her research team have filed through anything they could collect from both the turian colonies and several human ones, and found only suspicious residue and anomalous readings. Those alone are not nearly enough to explain what caused the disappearances, only that a foreign body engaged with the environment in some way. She receives word that command has more teams working on this problem now and that they are similarly making little progress. So far the enemy – if the phenomenon can even be called “enemy” – remains unidentifiable. No amount of postulation can move them any closer to understanding.

Her team is diverse, and she knows them better than she did her Blackwatch mentors. They generally meet up and share meals in the mess hall at the same time so they can converse, they greet each other in the halls and work rooms, they spar together, and they rut each other. This team and this ship, the _Derilus,_ is small, which forces them to be comfortable with each other.

She must be lonely, because she keeps having these dreams… but they are not about Delian. Her mind seems to be building itself a fantasy and sometimes she has the chance to live inside it for the faintest of moments.

She finds herself in the arms of another turian, and in the obscurity of the sleeping pod she cannot make out any details of his face. Just from silhouette she knows it is not Delian, and yet, she feels so safe and relaxed here that she desires to stay. With him, there is no sense of unease; she understands that she trusts him. She adjusts her position slightly and nestles herself deeper into the embrace of this stranger, listening to the calming, musical purr and smelling some unknown mix of natural oils and synthetic chemicals. His plates are perfectly smooth, almost like glass, but with just the perfect give to them.

_So happy,_ she trills.

_Pardon?_ the θ rumbles and shifts, “did you say something?” His voice is pleasant even when he is drowsy; sounds an _awful_ lot like Lusan. Oh, but this voice is like the gentle waves of the lingering sunset’s heat. What spirit is this?

_I love you,_ she replies. This is a truth that she _understands,_ like one of the governing laws of the universe.

_I love you,_ he croons, and all is well and right in this world.

He presses his palm against the back of her head and kneads the plating, shifting her fringes to one side. She accepts this as ordinary despite the fact that she had her fringes sheared in the last period. She wants to ask him if she is in heaven, or even what his name is, but he is tired and she should not badger him with questions she should already know the answers to.

She wakes up from these dreams feeling so lost and so empty. She wants to go back. She _needs_ to. What the hell is her mind doing with her? She is afraid to see a psychiatrist because she does not want her stability called into question at this point. Her leadership and her role are important to the success of this mission and removing her would bring it to a screeching halt.

So she never talks about it with her crew, but they notice the fallout.

_Tired?_ “You look like you just ran a marathon,” Lusan Vakarian notes as she drags herself into the mess for First and begins to prepare herself a meal.

_Restless,_ “You don’t know the half of it,” she grumbles and slumps down at the table across from him. Riktel Ameks and Delaai Indomina file in several seconds later and nod in greeting.

_A story?_ “Do I want to?”

_I won’t speak,_ “I don’t really want to talk about it,” she looks away, but she can see Lusan’s mandibles tighten around his jaw. Turians are expected to endure a certain degree of mental trauma in their military careers – triple that for Blackwatch operatives. The younger they are, the worse it usually is, and Lanaai is _very young._ Vakarian will not press her for more details because it is incredibly rude to do so under any circumstances, unless she offers to explain.

_Need to rut?_ “Do you need some help?” his voice is low, concerned. She greatly appreciates his offer, but she has no energy to commit to him and she would rather not waste his time.

_Thank you,_ “Not right now, but thank you for offering. I’ll make some time later today when we’re off-hours.”

“Sounds good,” _something to drink, now?_ “How about a Taetran?” he raises his brows, “I’m about done with my plate anyway.”

_Kind of you,_ “I’ll take you up on that. Thank you, Vakarian.”

_Remind me?_ “You like cream-in, right?” he trills from the cabinets.

“That’s right,” _kindly, two,_ she moves herself to the opposite side of the room to begin organizing some breakfast sweet meats and fruits onto her plate.

_You monster,_ he fires back, “ah yes, the rare specimen that likes cream in her Taetran.”

“Oh you’re one to talk, Vakarian!” _don’t act like you didn’t know!_ she grins and returns to the table. She graciously accepts the warm beverage from her teammate and sips gingerly at it while their other squadmates sit down and begin chatting about their findings from yesterday’s data haul. Lanaai slams the rest of her Taetran, and allows the conversation to wake her up. They are going to attempt a novel approach to analyzing the readings they gathered from the latest deserted human and turian colonies to see if they can create any significant connections between the two. The next step is to design an AI that can parse through the data and find anomalies that a traditional computation system would miss. The prospect of designing this processing device is thrilling to her, and soon thoughts of her dreamland are no more than whispers.

* * *

Finding out about Shepard’s struggle for a proper briefing and justification diminishes Garrus’ faith in the Alliance’s honor. What good could possibly come of having this much element zero in one place? Is this an attempt to build some kind of super-weapon just so they can “speak louder” in the galactic council? Or a potential revenge scheme for the shrouded first contact events? Shepard is angry about it too for the same reasons he is. He knows Shepard is not exactly a fan of humanity to begin with, and even less so of the Alliance.

After no sign of any hostile vessels in the area they decide to drop in and complete their mission. They will necessarily make short work of rerouting the asteroid, and then they will scrape all the data off this outpost against the explicit orders of her superiors, who have no authority over _him._ After that he wants to have a talk with Shepard’s contacts in the Alliance.

At least Shepard in armor really is a wonderful sight, and she stands apart because she is completely stoic. Williams looks uncomfortable by the way her shoulders are slightly hunched and she fidgets with her weapon, and the lack of standard gravity makes Alenko look like he might lose his last meal.

Focos and Quo’an are both still and ready. With their years of experience and training, nothing can upset their sense of balance. Sidonis dislikes low gravity situations, but he can handle it. As they approach the asteroid they start to pick up a colossal mass field fluctuation. The closer they get the stronger the gravity becomes, disproportionately to the mass of the body itself, and as they land gravity reads at around eighteen meters per second. That will not be an issue for his team because they have trained in high-g environments and they are _turians._ He is not sure about Shepard’s team, however, including Shepard.

“Uh oh,” Alenko mutters.

“Finally a good workout,” Shepard muses and turns to her squad mates, “pay very close attention to your biotic drain. I don’t want you passing out and we don’t have enough time to re-calibrate your amps for the strength of this mass field.”

“Yes ma’am,” the two humans nod.

They have chosen to break into the facility from an obscure maintenance port and then just blast by any resistance they find. They do not know what they will find in there and so far Sidonis has not had luck breaking into their networking from outside of the base. They will require a direct connection to take advantage of the control and surveillance systems. Externally there are no signs of struggle or forced entry, which immediately worries him. And really Garrus should not even be here, but he has to protect his Lia at all costs.

Sidonis rigs up the underside of the maintenance port and they torch their way in. With all eyes on their scanners they pick up a large presence of “enemies” here. They still have no idea if these are humans or not. Garrus notices how unsettling it smells: like burnt electronics and human blood. He also hears someone breathe right into his ear which causes him to jerk his head around. Everyone else stares back in confusion – no one is close and he is wearing a helmet. No one used the comms either. Shepard exchanges a few words with him before they continue further into the base.

Sidonis is finally sure he can start monitoring transmissions without getting them spotted, but when he opens the monitors they hear the last thing they expect: nothing. Total silence. Truly bizarre. A few moments later and Sidonis has access to live camera feeds and various other telemetries. For a super-secure base, its internal network integrity is very low, but that might be due to whoever showed up and diverted the asteroid in the first place. Surely these humans were not complicit in this act of sabotage?

They are running out of time to re-route the fusion torches, otherwise they run the risk of being unable to steer it away from the colony world’s gravity well. They only see humans in the camera feeds, but something is off. The personnel look very pale and sickly, or in the case of darker-skinned individuals, desaturated and lacking in the usual _infra_ that makes their skin look alive.

“They look like statues or zombies or someshit,” Williams whispers, “why the _fuck_ aren’t they moving?”

He groans.

“Looks like you owe me a Taetran,” Shepard’s voice crackles over his private comm line, but the somber tone contradicts what would otherwise be a lighthearted statement.

Up until now they have assumed that there had been some kind of external tampering, but it appears as if all tampering was performed internally. Shepard speculates that one of the employees was paid off by someone to do carry out this operation. However, they find no evidence of any single human here who is not under the influence of… whatever crazy hallucinogen they must have taken. Shepard reminds them to check their respirators now; they must only use their isolated oxygen-nitrogen supplies to avoid breathing the air in here.

Sidonis gains control over the environmental systems in case they need to nuke the whole operation by venting the pressurized atmosphere. They start to move towards the master control room where they can take control over the torches. They finally reach a point where it becomes impossible to avoid dealing with the “human” presence here. Up close they notice a few extra unsettling things about these people. Shepard moves ahead of them

“Why aren’t we equipped for proper infil and… crowd control?” she mutters under her breath.

“Because command told us fuck-all, Skip,” Williams whispers back angrily, shouldering her DMR.

Garrus and his team pad along without a sound, keeping watch towards their rear. He keeps Sidonis company and helps direct him while the smaller turian keeps his head buried in the telemetry.

“Is it possible to gain control over the systems from here?” Garrus asks Sidonis.

“I’m working on it,” he replies, “but it almost seems like something is learning about my attempts to break in and slowly becoming aware of our presence. I do not want to set off an alarm,” Sidonis pauses and cocks his head in careful consideration.

“The… humans are clustering up at the control center. It’s like they know we’re here, and why, and where we want to go” he finally confesses, “damn it all.”

They know where the control room is and they haul towards it, fighting the high-g environment. He and Sidonis stay with Shepard. Williams and Alenko struggle to keep to up with Focos and Quo’an as they begin to take off. The humans lack the mobility suits that his officers have, but their passive biotics help shield them from the effects of stronger acceleration due to gravity. They have barely begun their final approach, and remain out of the line of sight of the now tightly-packed human crowd.

These personnel… Garrus notices their blank expressions and the way their bodies seem to press together as if they are controlled by a puppeteer. It is definitely unnatural and there is something terrifying going on. They are peering into the mouth of the void. Then they hear the noises of a vicious crowd of creatures howling in rage: utterly inhuman. It causes him to falter, but it only motivates his two mobility.

“No fatalities!” Shepard shouts into the comms. But that sound is truly inhuman, Garrus knows; would they count as “fatalities” at this point? They already seem dead. He knows that Shepard knows.

* * *

To say Shepard notices the massive change in gravity would be an understatement.

“This is absolutely due to a massive amount of local element zero – and it’s being sourced for power as well. Inert element zero doesn’t produce any field disturbances like this.”

One by one, Garrus’ fantastical estimates are slowly turning in reality, and it appears that there might be thousands of cubic meters of eezo present somewhere below them, many times larger than the drive cores permitted for dreadnought-class star ships. It will be a fun workout for her. She has not trained in high-g for a long time, but Bridge is a comfortable thirteen meters per second, so her body remembers the feeling and the weight. She had to work hard on Earth to keep her leg strength equivalent with what she was used to on Bridge. For Alenko and Williams this could be troublesome if they do not manage the energy drain from their passive biotic resistance to mass fields.

Shepard is startled when Garrus’ head whips around to stare at them. She wants to ask what is wrong but then she hears a quiet breath, like an exhale. She cocks her head in confusion. No one just used the comms and her helmet is currently filtering out all noise below a certain decibel level and within a constrained frequency spectrum… a fancy way to say that it is supposed to filter out the sound of _breathing._

She wants to ask if anyone else heard that but she does not want to seem crazy. But she wants to know what caused Garrus to suddenly stop and look around. So she asks quietly.

“What’s up Vakarian?”

When he answers hesitantly her stomach drops into her gut, “I thought I heard… something like a breath? Could just be comm static.”

Her brow furrows inside her helmet. That is too strange of a coincidence, but no one else except Garrus seems to have heard it. Once Sidonis breaks into the camera controls they get the first detailed glimpse of their environment. The more they look at the feeds the more uncomfortable they become.

“Control chips?” Shepard suggests, talking to herself now, “In all these workers? Some kind of biological weapon? No that can’t be right there are no traces of airborne toxins. Unless it was in the water? No sign of outside tampering though… dammit. We still have to redirect the asteroid, so we still have to get to the central control station. What the fuck is wrong with them? Some of them look almost necrotic,” she catches herself rambling.

It is very disturbing, to say the least, and it conjures up images of the empty faces of those poor people on Mindior. She holds down bile. Everyone they spot through the security cameras does nothing except sway in place, as if inebriated beyond all reason. It is like once their communications cut out they ceased to have higher-level brain functionality. Her team starts to make their way out of the maintenance port access way and into the halls of this base.

Shepard quickly dispatches the concept of talking to these humans but she does not want to resort to violence.

“Set phasers to stun,” she says.

“…Decelerated, sub-sonic concussive rounds only,” she hears Garrus translate what she means to his people.

“No fatalities unless we take fire. I’ve got the loner,” indicating the single human who has started to move down the hall, “Garrus you pick off stranger-danger over there,” indicating the elder male human with an insane, blank look on his face.

“Shepard you need to not do that. They don’t understand our codepseak,” she hears him on her private comms.

“On three, Commander,” she ignores his advice. Garrus draws his sidearm which is the only weapon he carries that will not instantly vaporize whatever he hits. On the lowest velocity setting, both of their weapons are virtually silent. The sharp hissing sound followed by the abrupt thudding indicates that they have found their marks. Both unarmed humans topple over.

Shepard hears Sidonis’ comment about the buildup of humans at their objective and thinks about it. She wants to rush the group before they can get organized, but she also does not want to incite a feral riot. The longer they spend here the more time the “enemy” has to congregate and the less time her own team will have to re-route the plasma torches. Shepard estimates that they have about fifteen minutes to get in there. She poses the problem to Garrus who agrees with her assessment.

She wants Alenko and Williams to give Quo’an and Focos a corridor to get in and stun the growing crowd with some stun charges. They can plow in and set up a barricade once they have leverage.

“And they still haven’t said anything over comms?” Shepard asks Sidonis.

“No,” he replies, “and I’ve exhausted all possible channels.”

The humans near the door to the control room have grouped together more tightly now.

“Alright let’s go,” she gives the command.

* * *

Focos and Quo’an start fending off the crowd with Williams’ and Alenko’s biotic assistance. Garrus has never considered the potential of biotics in the field until now, and he is glad they have this advantage. The only _Kabalim_ he ever worked with did _not_ use her biotics defensively, to put it euphemistically. Williams and Alenko seem to create these structures on the fly and can hold their shape with great control – Alenko especially. Garrus is truly impressed by the artistry of it.

The door unlocks as they approach it, courtesy of Sidonis. Garrus and Shepard use their concussive rounds to stun the crowd while Focos and Quo’an rush in to drop the stun charges. He cannot help but notice that Shepard does not miss a single shot, and matches him for accuracy. _That’s my girl._ The crowd closes in which means they must resort to CQC. Shepard watching his back feels natural – as natural as it always has and always will. The rabid humans wail and scream as they keep getting up and rushing.

At this point they have stopped questioning why the humans are like this because it is irrelevant to their mission. There will be plenty of time to speculate later once they stop this planetoid from eradicating the colony below. Garrus and Sidonis work while Shepard talks quickly with the rest of them about options for escape. Her understanding of architecture and engineering allows her to identify weak points in the structure that they can use to blast their way out into space. A depressurization will offer the best escape option for a number of reasons, mainly that the control room will be emergency-sealed by the response systems to make it impossible for anyone to break in. They can only trigger the response systems by creating a breach.

He and Sidonis gain control over the manual overrides for the torches and alter the trajectory. Sidonis quickly diverts his attention to database scraping while he has total control over the storage systems here. The Alliance will never have to find out, but he has to know what the purpose of this outpost is that led to this absolute nightmare. Their slamming on the door is audible, but no number of humans could ever break it down.

With a minute left and all controls set in place, Sidonis uses the last of his charges to wreck the interfaces so they cannot be changed or overridden. Shepard has already briefed the rest of his team about exit procedure. Alenko and Williams look weary, but they prepare to do their best work. The turians step in front of the humans because they have superior shock-resistance in both their bodies and armor.

Garrus encloses Shepard in his arms and stays low while the room pressurizes violently from the shaped charges, even with the extra biotic resistance from Alenko’s and Williams’ final efforts to protect them. The vacuum of space is, for once, welcoming as they are sucked from the atmosphere of the supply room into the void. Garrus checks Shepard’s supply lines for any sign of damage and, finding none, finds contentment in holding onto Lia tightly while they drift peacefully towards their evac shuttle.

* * *

Garrus really does make her feel safe in an otherwise unsafe environment. She already takes his impenetrable defensive line for granted as she has to start using her hands to fend off attackers. Williams and Alenko move their biotic barriers around as they maneuver their way to the control room, which has now been stun-flashed to hell and back. None of the humans in there are conscious anymore. They have seven minutes before the mission goes critical, and nine minutes before total mission failure, so they are cutting it closer than she prefers.

Garrus shouts to his mobility to get the doors closed once they get inside the room. Shepard mirrors the command for Alenko and Williams, who use the last of their energy to scoop the unconscious bodies from the room and slam the doors closed. Sidonis and Garrus get to work on the control panel. Garrus’ ability to read English script helps him interpret the control interfaces faster, without waiting for the translator overlay to catch up.

While Garrus and Sidonis work away Shepard formulates an escape plan. They cannot go out the way came in, and luckily Sidonis came in here laden with demolition equipment. The control room has a storage and supply “closet” which they can use to seal off this space from venting the atmosphere and blast out through there. They are all wearing hardsuits so they can afford to spacewalk.

Having two turian mobility on their team also helps in case something goes wrong with her team’s lack of space-grade RCS control. She borrows charges from Sidonis and rigs them up where she identifies a structural weakness in the framework. Alenko and Williams are exhausted but she needs them to do one more thing: they will help shield the shockwave from their ticket to leave.

Shepard is not terrified of space; in fact she enjoys spacewalking orders of magnitude more than Williams and Alenko. Alenko gets extremely motion sick from it and Williams just cannot stand the pure silence and the hopeless feeling she experiences. In this case it will not really matter, because the artificial gravity induced by the eezo core of this asteroid is holding them down, albeit barely now that they have temporarily powered-down the fusion torches while they complete their re-routing sequence.

Still, they are blasted into the void by the rush of depressurization. The inky canopy is welcoming as they go soaring away from their problems and into silence. They float while the entirety of the eezo core here fluctuates as the plasma torches re-align and cease operating at full output.

Shepard is going to tease Williams so hard about clinging to Quo’an later. They regroup and tether themselves together so the mobility can use their suits to arrest their velocity and make it easier for Nissus to pick them up. She holds tightly to Garrus anyway. It is not because she feels the fear of the void, it is because she has never felt this safe before and she wants to spend as much time as possible here.

* * *

They pile into the shuttle and welcome the sweet sensation of properly-adjusted artificial gravity once more. His joints were starting to complain under the massive pull of the asteroid. He does not let Shepard go until they have well over half way back to the _Nocveus_.

“What the fuck?” she breathes, exasperated, “I am. Beyond furious,” he watches the scowl on her face deepen and he can smell her grow sour with rage. Garrus is not too thrilled himself.

The Alliance sent them into what he would describe as a fever dream – a nightmare – without giving them any proper briefing or any warning. Sidonis is still feverishly looking through data and by the time the return he looks up and confirms their worry that the asteroid harbors an illegal quantity of element zero. And technically they would need to notify the Alliance to come pick up their mess because there are still a lot of living humans on that asteroid. If those people do not recover they will die as the base eventually ceased to function.

He watches Shepard take off to go yell at someone. Garrus talks to his own people privately, attempting to impress upon them how careful they have to be with their reports. He has to acknowledge the fact that this clearly violates a number of treaty conditions and that right now, they have enough information and evidence to start a war with humanity. Easily.

_I cannot emphasize enough,_ “Listen, all of you – this information is… dangerous,” _apocalyptic,_ “to the say least. It is more powerful than any weapon we have ever known. If this goes to command and they decide to take it to the council… humanity is over.”

The council would have to become involved as well, and all of humanity would be branded as a delinquent race, like the batarians, the krogan, the vorcha, yahg etc… He cannot let them release this information knowing what it would do to Shepard and her friends, her family, and people who Shepard trusts.

“This goes against my honor, but Shepard doesn’t deserve to suffer for her people,” _She does enough._

All the good humans would be leveled. He imagines a galaxy in which humanity had no impact on his life: no Lia, no Marek, no Jess. No music and no flavor. No understanding of a greater whole. No hope for a better path. Sidonis nods slowly as he internalizes the true volatility of their situation, but they know that they will still need to look it over in quite some detail to figure out what happened down there. In the debrief they try to work out what could have been the cause of all this. Sidonis has access to communications logs and sees that there are some unsettling mentions in there.

A slew of detailed research data indicates that the team on this outpost was indeed working on some kind of novel weapon that would require this quantity of element zero. They were not building the device, simply running tests since they discovered the location of this gold mine. It seems the colony world below was established as a diversionary measure to grant humanity sovereign control over the system. There are numerous mentions of “Atlas” in the text, mostly on shipping manifests. Garrus is incredibly conflicted; he may have to call in another Blackwatch team to clean this up. The Alliance is clearly not to be trusted any longer.

He finally makes the call and speaks to the Primarch, who sounds far less alarmed than Garrus would have expected. Perhaps this type of thing occurs more often than Garrus thought, and the Primarch finds it typical behavior of the Alliance by now. The only response he receives from Victus is vague and translates to no official Special Forces entity that Garrus knows of:

_It is in our best interests to keep humanity with the council. Aegis will take care of this. Thank you, Vakarian. Spirits guide you._

The logs from the asteroid base also include such cryptic items such as:

“Just listen to _them_ , Nat, listen to what _they_ say,” and

“Don’t tell _them_ about it – _they_ can never know about it,” and

“It is simply what _they_ need us to do. The others might not understand now, but they will.”

In all examples, references to the subject “they” have an unclear meaning, but sometimes it seems like they are hiding from “them” or addressing “them.” Garrus’ team cannot figure out what this may signify, but it does show that there was a long period of widespread lunacy and obfuscation of base operations from Alliance command… so the weapon may have been hidden from the Alliance as well.

There is, however, strong evidence that the Alliance command knew that the quantity of element zero held there was illegal. It appears they never discussed exact quantities in their communications, but there was definitely an understanding. Shepard points out that this is a strong indication that it was an Alliance cell headed by nefarious individuals. Shepard leaves, still upset.

Garrus is about to call it a night when he notices Shepard’s scent waft in from the mess hall. She is supposed to be sleeping. He spies her there, struggling to stay awake, with a cup of water sitting precariously to one side of the structure she has created with her arms to prop up her head. Her eyes are closed and her torso slowly rocks back and forth as if she can barely hold her posture.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep, Lia?” _you should,_ he asks softly.

“Yeah,” she replies, voice slurred from the drowsiness, “but I was having some issues. Uh… I don’t… want to go back, really.”

That puts him on edge. What does she keep from him? _You need rest_ “Let’s get you to bed Lia, Spirits,” he scoops the barely-clothed human into his arms and returns to his sleeping pod.

“Alright, _mom,_ ” she yawns and makes no attempt to protest.

Having her here with him is one of the most relaxing sensations he has ever experienced as his mind fills with regret over the years of his life he could have saved had he known. His plates soften as the tension drains and she sinks down into him. She sighs happily and quickly falls off to sleep. He follows her. When he wakes up he extracts himself carefully so she can continue to sleep. He wants this – whatever this is – to happen again. He wants to know if it can work.

* * *

Shepard is extremely angry. They may have escaped and caused that asteroid to re-route from a direct collision course with the colony planet, but there are many other issues that have popped up because of this. She is going to destroy someone at command for putting her team through this without proper briefing.

They also know about this illegal quantity of element zero that must be dealt with as soon as possible. That amount of eezo has never existed in one place before and no one knows how dangerous it could be. Not to mention it is a war crime to possess it, violating a number of treaty conditions with the council and even more treaty conditions with the Hierarchy. She loses faith in her people if this is the type of thing they think is acceptable.

Shepard manages to get Admiral Hackett on the line and opens up a full barrage of verbal fire.

“You sent us in there with no information and we found a bunch of rabid, feral, probably drugged-up humans! You knew you were sending us into a highly-unstable operation sitting on top of an illegal quantity of element zero. You knew you were sending a mixed crew – there are turians on board who know what you’ve done. There is enough evidence to start a war. To remove humanity from any dignified place in the galactic community. What the fuck do you have to say for yourself, asshole?” Shepard waits for Hackett’s reply. She had met him once and did not peg him as the type of person who would understand why issues like this one are so dangerous. Unlike herself, and even Anderson, he seems to fit most – if not all – military stereotypes.

“Commander you are out of line! If this information gets out you will be stripped of your rank and dishonorably discharged for treason. And we had no choice, you were our first response to this malfunction and we chose to inform you so that half a million innocent human lives could have a chance. The business of this facility is not with you,” Hackett replies coolly. Shepard clenches her teeth.

What a stupid comment. The business of the outpost was hers the moment they received the “briefing,” and he should know that. Hackett seems to like to order people to do really dangerous things, and then take no responsibility when they go completely awry. If there is anyone who knows about covering up mistakes, it is him. She can tell by looking at his military record, which is unusually spotless – especially around the first contact situation.

“I could have you charged with insubordination as well, for threatening command,” he adds. Shepard says nothing in reply. His counter-threats make her even angrier. She wants to know who authorized this and give them a piece of her mind.

“I’m not in charge of that operation, Commander, and I don’t know who is. I was not aware that the personnel aboard our outpost were so hostile. They showed no signs of that type of behavior before they went dark.”

“Well then fire whoever thought that operation was a good idea in the first place. They needlessly endangered the entire local system, and if anyone else finds out about it humanity as we know it would literally end. And all for what? To develop some kind of ridiculous super-weapon to wave in the council’s face? Because someone in command thinks humanity doesn’t have enough galactic influence?”

“Commander…” he raises his voice a bit, “one more comment challenging the authority of command like that and I will be forced level insubordination charges against you.”

She almost laughs.

“You can level all the charges you want. You provided me with full immunity from any negative repercussions when you sent me in there with one of the highest-ranked Blackwatch commanders in the Hierarchy. That incriminating information is no longer under my control; it’s under the control my turian teammates. Be glad that I am a halfway-decent envoy and that they are unlikely to bring that information to the Hierarchy because they trust me. In other words, the reason why humanity will have the freedom and privilege to wake up with rights on the Citadel, or Palaven, or Thessia, or Sur’kesh, or _Earth,_ tomorrow is because of _me_.”

Hackett is silent for a moment.

“Will that be all Commander?”

“Yes sir, signing off,” she closes the call, still angry.

Stalemate. She cannot get a hold of Anderson, so she returns to debrief with her team and Garrus’. There is a lot of speculation about what happened and Shepard remains extremely irritable. They discuss what they think should be done about the enormous quantity of element zero that they now know the Alliance has in their possession.

Shepard gives up after a while – she trusts that Sidonis will find it is in his best interests to keep humanity within the council, but he can do whatever he pleases. Shepard is citizen of the Hierarchy anyway, so she knows which side to take if a war breaks out. She will figure out how to adapt to the changes or she will simply dump herself out the airlock so she no longer has to deal with it. She goes to bed fuming and has a horrible, unfulfilling sleep filled with stress-dreams and nightmares.

Shepard wakes up in the middle of her night cycle and shambles into the mess hall to get a drink of water and do anything but sleep. She feels absolutely terrible and can barely keep her eyes open, but she knows what closing them would bring upon her. She barely registers Garrus padding into the mess hall in a casual wrap.

The “hey Garrus,” that comes out of her mouth is instinctual. She can barely answer his questions while she focuses on keeping her head off the table. He takes her to his nest with him, but she is too tired to be excited or feel uncomfortable about it. She falls asleep instantly as he wraps himself around her. She does not dream.

When she wakes up in the morning she is by herself, but at the very least she feels like she can face the upcoming cycle without dropping from exhaustion. She blushes a bit when she registers where she is and remembers how she got there. How wonderful.

In the following days Shepard has some troubles moving on from the experience. Witnessing perfectly normal humans completely reduced to a horde of rabid animals is deeply unsettling. She talks with Karin Chakwas and Alleon Octavian, their resident doctors, to see if they have ever encountered any kind of biological or chemical agent which could do this to people, or if such a thing is even possible. Octavian does not think so: such an agent would completely destroy sensory and motor controls. Chakwas agrees. It seems biological warfare is off the table, but it is truly impossible to know for sure.

Perhaps it was some super advanced nano-tech or some kind of field with the potential to interrupt or even influence the victim’s thoughts with high-energy EM fluctuations. That would be the end of days – and perhaps that was the purpose of this base – to either develop or test such an abomination… and the personnel were merely lab rats.


	14. Chapter 14

Garrus hesitates to tell Shepard about the Primarch’s message regarding the asteroid base despite his best intentions to. Shepard informs him that the Alliance has promised to “deal with the asteroid” but they both know that they will probably remain idle. Although, now that they know the entire populace of that base is no longer functional they have more incentive to go clean up after themselves… even if Garrus knows something that Shepard does not. Things go quiet after this mission. Garrus reflects on it occasionally, remembering the feeling of having her fighting beside him.

They did not solve the entire problem – they solved half of it. The Alliance still has possession over a vast amount of element zero and they can still recover it. He just has to hope that the Primarch knows what he is doing… and that whoever constitutes this “Aegis” team does as well.

Garrus has gone over the logs and the data they gathered from their break in onto the asteroid mining base and it really does seem like some external entity had been overseeing operations down there. It all started so slowly. The onset of insanity down there had been gradual and nuanced; slow-enough that no one noticed. It also looked like some of the crew convinced other crew to follow them into insanity as well as if spreading a disease. The source of this is yet unknown, and he doubts he can come up with a suitable explanation. That outpost had a lot of intelligent researchers working alongside the miners to develop the weapon the Alliance wanted to be kept hidden.

Two months of additional time prove to be completely inconclusive. So now, at four months in, they have been slowed down more by issues with the _Nocveus_ herself than with their mission. At least they have been getting by – so far he has not detected any tension between the human and turian crew on here.

He has managed to cram in one short rut with one of the officers which he does not particularly enjoy, but it definitely works. She wants contact and tries to move her body close to his while he would rather keep her at arms-length. At least she interprets his behavior as playful roughhousing rather than disrespectful manhandling. Afterwards, Garrus talks to Doctor Octavian about obtaining some more suppressants who reluctantly prescribes more. Octavian and Chakwas are not enthused about the idea of drugging up their commanding officer so that he does not have to rut, because that is not a good-enough reason with turians. However, they both seem to have a this odd form of empathy for him, as if they know what he knows.

Chakwas… he notices something is off about her when as stands nearby. She looks like the other humans but her skin is a much deeper shade of _infra_ than he has ever seen on another human, and her eyes almost seem to be fake. Two thin scars on the tops of her ears indicate some surgery or accident in her past. She looks old due to her white hair but she is definitely _not_ old – the wrinkles that older humans develop with age also look false to him. She also smells like Octavian without smelling like the rut. He puzzles over these details for a moment but passes them off as odd human diversity and just accepts his suppressants. He has other concerns to address right now.

He is very disappointed when the anomalies turn out to be malfunctioning hardware, but it quickly turns into more leads when they use the sensor’s local connections to discover more anomalies. It is either a coincidence or a red herring, but as they look into it more, those other sensors are not malfunctioning. They are able to get a clearer idea about which star is affected by this occluding object. After a week of tracking and failing to properly triangulate using sensor data, they finally manage to determine a location with enough confidence to merit traveling there.

Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined what they discover.

A massive dark structure of similar scale to the citadel floats stoically, casting a vast, speckled shadow onto the nebular clouds nearby. It is a spherical superstation composed of a geodesic lattice-like structure – triangles tessellated around a sphere. Some triangles are filled in, but the open triangles are large enough to fly cruisers through with plenty of clearance. A large spindle-like spire reaches into the center from the outer shell. At the tip of the spire is a spherical geodesic building which mimics the shell. They sit there and examine it in awe. It seems to grow larger and larger as they approach it, and it reveals its true scale. They have no idea what this is or how no one has noticed it before.

One of the first things Shepard does is revoke everyone’s access to external sensor data.

Upon closer inspection it seems like it is not a completed structure. This is evidenced by the way that the plating, which is consistent in some areas, does not appear in others, leaving inner workings exposed to the harsh environment of the void. Someone started to build this for some reason and then suddenly stopped. Suddenly the most intriguing aspect about this structure becomes its incompleteness: Why is it unfinished? What is its history that caused its builders to evacuate?

It also does not match any design characteristics of any station they have seen in the last millennium. The closest analogue that comes to mind is ancient asari architecture on Thessia. It causes them to speculate that maybe this structure is like the Leviathan of Dis: a relic of a long-defunct civilization with no place in modernity.

They begin to make closer passes of the structure, peering into its interior through the gaps in the superstructure. There are no signs of life and no evidence that this station was ever designed to house life like the Citadel clearly was. There are no visible windows, entryways, pathways, docking bays, etc… Biological life was not a consideration for its _purpose;_ this structure exists to complete a task.

They spot all sorts of substructures along the unbroken triangular surfaces, but they are not habitations. If anything they start to resemble speaker cones or rocket nozzles. It is possible they would be used for maneuvering, but both he and Shepard agree that they probably do not function that way. This mission is now worth all of the strife if it means they have a chance to study this station and learn of its secrets.

* * *

They take longer to reach their destination than they hoped, having required an emergency refuel and multiple maintenance stops. It had been expected on this experimental craft. And each time they had to get super-secret clearance with special engineering teams and then wait for them, sometimes for weeks. They cannot just head into standard ports with this ship.

When they finally do make it to their destination they find out the sensors generating the anomalous patterns are actually just malfunctioning. Her preparations with Sidonis dramatically speed up their investigations and they hardly spend a day at each sensor scraping log data and checking for hardware problems. There is nothing in orbit around the star. She is disappointed and relieved at the same time. At least they have some closure.

But the anomalies do not stop with those sensors. They detect more short-range probes in the area, all of which were previously obscured by distance and obstacles. Those probes have similar issues, reporting occlusions and unnatural light fluctuations. So they fly around for two weeks without the aid of relays to these locations to see what is going on.

It is the opposite of what anyone would have ever expected to find. This structure is massive and it does not quite add up that it would have gone all this time without notice. But, the galaxy is a big place and there is literally nothing out here in this arm of the Milky Way.

The scale of the superstation is nearly incomprehensible. Its diameter is slightly larger than the length of the Citadel – the entire Citadel, folded, would fit inside this structure if not for the spire extending to the center. This structure is also completely defunct, at least from the outside. Shepard immediately revokes all external sensor access from her comms team, having Sidonis wire in a false response mechanism to keep them from questioning anything. She feels intensely guilty about it, but if the Alliance had no issues supporting an extremely illegal development project and endangering hundreds of thousands of lives, then there is nothing stopping them from attempting to turn whatever the hell this station is into a weapon.

She and Garrus pour over their scans and imaging data noting every detail, briefly reviving the pieces of themselves they have long forgotten. What was the history of this station? What was its purpose?

This superstation is definitely the most alien thing she has ever seen. It looks like it comes from another time and place altogether. Garrus’ observation about how it resembles ancient asari architecture is astute and she has also heard about the Leviathan of Dis – this structure could be related. They would not know, however, if they do not investigate and look for information from the inside.

And they are the specialized recon team – the first responders – it is their job to investigate ridiculous items like this. It is their job to collect information so that other people can piece it together in the safety of their planet-side stations. She knows that they are going to have to organize a drop team. Convincing Williams and Alenko to join her for a spacewalk is going to be a journey.

Luckily, these engineers do not fuck around; most of them have had extensive spacewalk training so they could, if needed, make external repairs in the vacuum. She finds the one of them who looks the most bothered the her request: this engineer is their most qualified and she does not have time to faff about.

Shepard also assumes that this engineer has no motivation to take information outside their missions and sell it off, based on her file. Whatever they find out there could be so insanely dangerous that it would be unethical for anyone to know about it. She knows humans – violence and ego is always favorable over the alternatives. She refuses to speak to the Alliance about this, knowing what could become of the galaxy if she did.

In the brief exchanges between herself and Jackie, Shepard can already tell she knows a lot. Jackie asks all the right questions and has a grip on all the correct lingo. The board the spire and can the area with better equipment. They find a wall that hides a larger space behind it so they begin to cut through, carefully. They will start by opening a small hole, enough to fit a probe through there, then open it if it is safe.

“Jackie?” Shepard calls out as she enters engineering and finds the woman in question working away at her console. She turns and nods stiffly.

“Yes, Commander?” comes the gruff reply. Jacquelin “Jackie” Micarre is an unhappy person, like Shepard. She will be perfect for this job, even if it is the only formal field mission she ever participates on. She is an older woman who does not look too happy to be working with turians and taking orders from younger people, but all that means is she has become so adept at her work that she has earned the right to be bothered by everyone.

“I want you to join us for a spacewalk.”

“Is there something wrong with the _Normandy?_ ” Micarre sounds genuinely nervous; she cares deeply about this craft, contrary to her attachment to her peers.

“No… no we’ve found something, and I want your expert opinion. _On-site._ ”

“Why?”

Shepard sighs and refuses to spar with her.

“Check out a hardsuit and gear up. We’ll see you in the hangar bay in an hour.”

“Of course, Commander,” comes the entirely too neutral response.

The four of them gather in the hangar and leave promptly. Micarre gasps as she takes in the station before her and looks nervously towards the rest of them. They remain quiet for the duration of the ride and nothing worrisome materializes as they journey to the spire and step out into the vacuum. Sidonis and Shepard run several acoustic tests and determine an entry point, cutting open a panel and sending a small surveillance drone through to scout the cavernous chamber on the other side.

“Holy shit, is that…” Shepard says quietly in disbelief. Standing to her side, Garrus goes more still than normal. They thought they had seen the largest amount of element zero in one place on that asteroid…

There is enough element zero in here to power hundreds of dreadnought and super-carrier class starships. The asteroid fuckup looks like a drop of water in this torrential downpour. They were not even aware it was physically possible to have this much in one place. They have not been able to check inside the relays to know how much they use, but this is certainly _up there._ The element zero is inert and sculpted into a massive, ornate, interlocking sphere. It puts their toroidal concept to shame.

This station could easily relay itself across the galaxy. Not only is it the greatest mass of eezo that has ever been observed, but it has the highest surface area due to its impossible shape. The energy output potential of this station borders on the edge of theoretical limitations and may begin to tear holes in reality if completely activated and tapped. If another one of these were present elsewhere – it would certainly be capable of manipulating colony-sized areas of land. It could be capable of encapsulating the entire colony with a mass field and simple taking it somewhere else.

“Spirits” she hears him mutter, almost in irritation that they now have a whole new can of worms to deal with.

“This is bad,” Jackie shakes her head.

They all agree that this station is now the most important thing they have to deal with right now. They must figure out its purpose and its history.

* * *

Why is she here? She wants to stay forever but she knows she cannot. Is she living in someone else’s dream? Someone else’s body? She has to leave something behind to see if it is there the next time she finds herself here. Without disturbing her partner, she brandishes a talon and carves a circle into the palm of her hand and _feels it._ The blood congeals before it can go gushing all over the nesting pod, and before she can go back to reveling in the safety of her partner’s arms, she wakes up.

* * *

They board the spire with their small team of four: himself, Sidonis, Shepard, and a petite, angry, human female engineer who calls herself “Jackie.” Luckily, though, she will not vomit everywhere like Shepard’s two military-trained squadmates had. Humans, like turians, train their top-tier engineers and mechanics to work in zero-gravity because they are often tasked with external repairs on starships, or handling internal repairs without the convenience of gravity.

Shepard takes control of the situation and starts ordering them around. They drag in some equipment and conduct a more thorough scan of the area. An acoustic test reveals that there should be an enormous space behind the far wall, so they start there, at the thinnest section they can determine.

Their probe goes in and they seal the hole in case any kind of lethal, corrosive gas inside leaks out. With the camera probe deployed they get a good view of the interior under illumination from some mystery light source. There should be no light present inside the chamber at all, and yet they can see the environment unfold from here. Sidonis maneuvers the small probe around gracefully, despite the tension building in his shoulders.

The room they are looking at is a massive chamber with more of those speaker cones on all sides. There is a walkway that goes around the inside and a path that goes to what is clearly a control room. In the center is the largest core of inert element zero they have ever seen… not to mention the impossible shape. The behemoth is the source of the faint light, as there is so much element zero present that it passively emits photons. This room immediately makes this whole station more threatening than any adversary they have ever known. Sidonis and Shepard estimate that this much element zero does not even exist in one place outside of mass relays. This has little to do with missing colonists – but they cannot ignore this.

It becomes glaringly obvious upon inspecting the control room that they will need a linguist. Additionally, the wall facing the core is covered with physical controls and labels in unrecognizable script. They assume all other empty spaces would allow holographic screens to appear if this station was in use. The probe continues. On the other side of the room there is a large opening into another large vault with an obelisk standing at one end. It is the only structure in the room, and it appears the room is only there to house this ominous structure.

“Looks ancient,” Jackie grumbles.

“Taking the words right out my mouth, Jackie,” Shepard replies, agreeing with her assessment.

“Not to make any disrespectful assumptions, but I think we will definitely need to contact an expert on ancient civilizations. Obviously this whole place shouldn’t exist – and it’s obviously from another time.”

“It is obvious that this place is ancient, kinda strange how we can so easily tell, and yet we can’t qualify why…” Shepard adds, “At the very least, no modern civilization has ever designed a station like this, and ever would.”

_Not at this scale either, it’s unnerving_ “Not to mention that it would never go unnoticed,” Garrus speaks up, thinking about the logistics of such a thing, “if it is a weapon, it could easily start and end a war. Probably all in the same day” _and no one would be left._

“Probably all in the same second,” Sidonis mutters as he pilots the drone back.

After returning from their initial scouting run they debrief with as few people as possible. They should do as much work here as they can manage before involving anyone else. The more people who know about this station the more unstable and politically-motivated everything will become. The discovery and habitation process of Citadel was like that many years before, so there is no reason to suspect this would be any different, especially when any species finds out that they could have access to this much element zero in one place.

Shepard includes three other humans in their debrief to work on rationalizing this: another engineer, a comms officer who apparently majored in speculative super-ancient history during university, and a logician. He does not know their names and he is too lazy to look them up on his visor, but Shepard seems to know them, which is good-enough for him.

The comms officer speaks up “It might be prothean.”

Garrus watches Shepard fix him under her gaze and inspect his statement as if it is a tangible, visible item. She nods slowly, agreeing and granting him permission to give more detail in one gesture.

“When I was training on Mars 02, we had a resident asari who was pretty big on protheans. Never really talked to her because she didn’t talk much… but sometimes I would see some crazy relic she’d have hauled into high-sec containment. I was intrigued so I started poking around online. I think her name was… Tasoni? Doctor Tasoni? I should know this I cited one of her papers I think.”

Garrus has already looked up the name and found some hits. Some news stories about a “Matriarch Benezia” figure who has gone missing and hundreds of scholarly articles contributed to or authored by a “Doctor Liara T’soni.”

“Right… Seems she’s interested in prothean history. I’ve read a bit about them,” Shepard is now talking in the background while he focuses on looking for “protheans” in these articles, “it would make sense… they were a major galactic superpower apparently, and then vanished into thin air.”

“Yeah that’s right,” the comms officer affirms, “Doesn’t add up – lots of theories and not enough evidence… yet.”

T’soni has almost a hundred papers about protheans and prothean artifacts alone – Garrus would consider her “obsessed.” She also has other works on other civilizations. So they are _very_ lucky that one of their people happens to have noticed her. She is one of the galaxy’s foremost expert in her field. Now getting into contact with her is going to be a journey…

Garrus, Shepard, and Sidonis do some research about this T’soni character once they adjourn their debriefing. They put out contact requests to their respective governments, which means that their ambassadors on the Citadel will talk to other ambassadors to talk to other governments to talk to their inside people to contact T’soni. It is a long chain of passing information in which clarity becomes impossible. Who knows how much their original request will be skewed by the time it reaches her, if at all?

They plan a final sweep of the structure before they have to depart, admitting that they cannot do any more here and that they lack the proper resources to continue an investigation. At this point they have gathered what they assume to be the most important details about this place. There are other problems that need addressing; those missing colonists will not find themselves.

* * *

The obelisk, observed through the camera of their drone, is truly alien. It is plain, completely planar and angular, but the way it has two prongs of equal length reminds her of a mass relay. Their probe is not equipped to scan for materials, and they also do not want to use the probe to do any kind of scanning anyway, which might set something off. They are already taking a risk by using the mass effect thrusters to move the probe around with that much element zero nearby.

It is strange that it has not become affected by any of their field craft, but this room must be very well insulated against mass effect fields by those speaker cone structures, whatever they are. The probe has not detected any kind of lethal toxins or field anomalies in the chambers so they decide to go ahead and cut into the room.

They cannot let news of this discovery leak at all. When they debrief, Shepard only brings in three people who she has examined carefully, and only those that Anderson has personal history with. They also need to get into contact with an expert in ancient civilizations expert who knows more about these markings and this structure than they do. Their best efforts searching through the extranet have not exactly returned much.

They catch a very lucky break when their comms major says he knows of someone who could potentially help them unravel what is going on here. Upon further inspection it becomes clear that Doctor T’soni will be invaluable in their search for information on this super weapon.

His claim checks out; Shepard knows about the prothean ruins on Mars. Literally every human knows about them because they are the reason humanity discovered mass effect in the first place. A brief extranet search pulls up hundreds of academic papers she has contributed to, authored, or co-authored. She really is an ancient civilizations expert.

T’soni is young for an asari: one hundred and six years old. She seems busy, but in the desperate-for-approval kind of way. It will be difficult to convince her to work with them. Academics (like Shepard herself) are not fans of military types, and Shepard fully empathizes.

They plan a final sweep for the next cycle. She, Garrus and Micarre will scour the interior of the central chamber manually. Kaidan has kindly volunteered to go back out, so she sticks him in a squad led by Sidonis, paired with Focos. Williams opts out of another spacewalk, so Shepard allows Garrus to assign his remaining people to the other squad.

* * *

They depart early in the cycle, as early as Shepard is willing to wake up, but earlier than Alenko would have liked. They shuffle into their armor and hop into three shuttles. Sidonis’ team will circle the sphere on the outside and look over points of interest they identified but did not have a chance to look at closely. Nissus’ team will look around the inside doing basically the same thing. Garrus’ team are going in to the large room with the core and the obelisk to look around. He feels a bit nervous. They still are not entirely confident that the room is devoid of traps or other unforeseeable dangers, but he supposes it cannot possibly be worse than some of the other missions he has been on.

The panel from before is removed and the entryway they cut is large enough to duck through.

“Go ahead and cut more off, Lo’kian,” Shepard advises their massive cover turian as he works on plasma cutting the thin plating away, “if shit goes sideways and we need to get out of here as soon as possible, I don’t want anyone to spend time cramming their way through a tiny hatch,” She looks at him from behind her visor.

“Your massive upper body armor needs to fit through there without a problem, and so does Garrus’ ego.”

Garrus snorts. Lo’kian looks confused as to why Shepard would make such a comment about her esteemed colleague. He is thankful that she still finds time for humor in an otherwise daunting scenario.

It takes up some more time, but it is a smart precaution, and perfectly represents the reason why Shepard is nice to have around with her engineering background. She knows safety regulations inside and out and she has informed him that this entire structure breaks safe-design principles on just about every level. Barring any active defense mechanisms, simply moving around this place could be fatal by itself.

They cautiously float themselves into the room, Garrus taking point and Shepard backing up the rear. The scale of the core is much more humbling when viewing it through his own eyes. He swears he can feel it glaring down at them, making them feel _insignificant._

The other teams check in and report nothing of interest. Sidonis has allegedly gotten creative with the fusion torches and demolition charges and has gathered more information. The second team has scoured their points of interest but found nothing noteworthy. Both teams are moving on to their final waypoints before heading back to the _Nocveus_. Garrus’ team finally arrives at the “control room” so they can take a look, not daring to touch anything. Their more capable scanners do not indicate any other hidden energy sources which could suddenly power on aside from the element zero, so they move on to the obelisk’s chamber.

While Lo’kian holds his position in the small entryway, the three of them head closer to the obelisk and start up their short-range scanners once more. He sees some pretty wacky readings, enough to know that something is messing with the equipment. His instincts instantly catch something else. He can feel Shepard’s heartbeat spike practically through his hardsuit. He can sense her loss of balance before she does, perhaps, and he bolts to her side as she suddenly loses all motor control and goes limp. Jackie is alarmed and steps forward to check on her superior.

Garrus immediately radios in for evac. Just as he is about to check her for injuries she jolts in his arms and curses. She clutches her head and groans in pain, not responding to his communications. She speaks a sentence of complete gibberish – fluently gibberish, as if she does not even have to think about it, and points to the obelisk and then across the chamber to the exit. She finally stands up, using him as a brace while her magboots re-engage.

“What the fuck happened?” she shakes her head and looks at him.

_You tell me. I’m terrified,_ “I don’t know Shepard, One second you were-”

Shepard turns to him and the entire room bursts into flames with her at its center. She dissolves into nothing as his vision swims with the fires of planets burning; of people burning. There is shouting: warnings in a language that neither he nor anyone else in the galaxy speaks. His pain receptors have shut off at this point, having given up.

He falls, but he continues to see these visions of destruction. He hears the warnings, smells the burning bodies, experiences the terror of thousands of civilizations as they crumble. He sees the giant insect-like craft at the helm of it all. His vision swims with white and it is over. His mind cannot make sense of what it has seen and he is plunged into a fever dream where he has to run away, but everything around him is just blank. He has to run away but there is nothing.

* * *

Shepard is apprehensive to enter the chamber but acknowledges that this is their only chance at a promising lead. Their drone was good for scouting the place, but they need more complete data and the only way they can obtain it is by dragging in armor-mounted scanning equipment. Their teams move out early in the cycle. Shepard braces herself against the discomfort of zero gravity. Their shuttle drops them off at the spire and they get to work cutting an entryway into the sealed-off chamber.

Shepard makes damn sure that they can escape quickly if they need to because she has an uneasy feeling, and it is not due to the zero gravity. She feels like something is watching them, and her ears pull back as if they have detected something in the distance and they are instinctively straining to hear it.

The room is so much larger in person. She can tell they all feel it. It’s like Boullée’s planetarium in here: the perfect sublime scale, spherical, _impossible._ They start scanning immediately because time may be limited. They will check out that control room, then they will take a closer look at that obelisk, the material of which looks conspicuously different; an anomaly in this context. Everything else here is the same type of brushed alloy, but that obelisk is a mirror-polished, blackened metal based on its acoustics. It is definitely a point of interest because it does not belong in this place, and perhaps the original architects did not install it here.

After Garrus checks in with the other teams and Shepard communicates with Kaidan to see how he is holding up under the command of someone else, they move deeper into the chamber. The control room is just as bland as they left it, and scans do not reveal anything new. There is no residual power or traces of energy here despite the sheer quantity of element zero present nearby. They do, however, get good, close scans of the markings for later study.

It is unmistakably ancient, and while the markings do resemble the nearest Prothean script they have on record, they will never be able to translate this without the help of an expert. Some of these markings are even scrawled hastily into the metal, like the writer was out of time or out of budget. She considers with a passing thought, that the scrawled notes might be from vandals or insurgents, and that this station is incomplete as a result of an ancient political conflict. They move on to the room with the obelisk.

Shepard looks at the obelisk and the room dissolves into nothing. She falls. Her heart rate skyrockets and she starts to breathe heavily as she suddenly feels the effects of gravitational acceleration. She does not cry out. She looks upon these insect-like machines as they use energy-based weapons to raze everything. Thousands of voices and images bombard her senses and she instantly gets a splitting headache, much worse than she has ever experienced.

A single voice asks her if she has arrived to end the cycles.

“I need an explanation if you need an answer,” she replies, now angry for some reason.

She receives no direct reply as thousands of new voices talk all at once as she is plowed through kilometers and kilometers of mechanical structures and implements. She finally stops, abruptly, back in the room with the obelisk. She jolts. Her mind is still imprinted with ghostly leftovers from the visions. Like a dream, she already cannot remember all the details.

She staggers to her feet and attempts to respond to Garrus, but he jerks violently and curls up, shaking. His mag boots have turned off and now floats eerily off the ground shaking. Jackie curses. Apparently Garrus ordered evac because evac has just contacted her that they are waiting.

“Help me get him under control!” she commands to Jackie who starts moving immediately.

As they begin to move, Garrus releases out the loudest, most animalistic roar she has ever heard from a turian. She curses loudly and tries to yell at him. He just gets louder until finally a deafening mechanical tone rings through the entire room, pounding through the metal plating in the floor. Shepard tries to cover her ears and realizes, stupidly, that she is wearing a helmet. With her ears ringing, she continues to unleash a string of curses as she lashes his now limp form to her back and heads for the exit as fast as possible. He does not respond to her calls and his vitals are clinging on to threads.

Jackie moves to the exit ahead of her to flag down the evac. Shepard sends Garrus through the entryway they cut before and then Lo’kian guides his limp form into the waiting shuttle. They book it back to the _Nocveus_. She cannot let him out of her grasp. Even when the artificial gravity turns on he feels light in her arms: all one hundred and forty kilograms of him and his armor. Shepard carries him into the medbay and then sits down in the corner staring blankly ahead, realizing that her arms really could not take the weight and that she is exhausted.

The doctors immediately get work and she answers questions in a daze. They tell her to do things and she does them without thinking about it. All she knows is that something is wrong with Garrus and it is her fault. She is already contemplating what she will have to do without him around. She wonders if she will feel anything when the doctors inevitably tell her that he has expired.

Shepard crawls into her pod after hastily stripping off her armor and falls asleep. When she wakes up it is an entire cycle later. Alenko and Williams have already been debriefed courtesy of Sidonis and Nissus, both of whom are understandably distraught about the situation. When Shepard finds Jackie, she is stricken as well; she heard Garrus’ "vocalization. Jackie is also the only one with answers and helmet cam footage. Shepard reviews the footage carefully over and over, mostly because it might be the last evidence of Garrus’ life that exists. She remembers speaking but not what it was she said, and it all came out as complete gibberish. Her experience was not as traumatic as Garrus’. That sound from him was _real_ – it picked up in the recording despite the lack of _air_ to propagate it. She does not know how to react.

She spends the next day checking in with his squad about their findings. All they noticed was a minor energy jolt corresponding with her approach to the obelisk. They start making plans to travel to the Citadel, which was the last place Doctor T’soni was seen working.

She obsessively checks on Garrus’ status which has not improved since arriving. The medics cannot find anything physically wrong with him other than nearly stripped-out vocal cords. They conclude that he has been mentally altered in some way, but they cannot determine the extent of it. He is mired in a coma, but his deep-cluster neurons responsible for memory and sapience are going off like crazy. She knows that means he is living through the worst nightmare of his life and it seems there is nothing they can do to wake him.

She starts to worry because it is now the third day and he shows no signs of recovery. They have arranged to take him to Palaven to procure him the higher-level treatment he needs, and then he will be gone. Chakwas and Octavian are being optimistic, but Shepard does not expect him to even be the same person if he ever wakes up.

As she nervously walks around the ship and goes about her routines, she is informed by someone other than the medics that Garrus’ condition has become _worse._ The doctors probably did not want her to find out because she hovers and gets in their way. They have already told her enough times that they are doing all they can to keep him alive.

* * *

Garrus is so exhausted. He cannot keep running away from the nothingness that chases him. If he tries to hide then it will find him. He can tell his energy stores are going to bottom out soon and his body will go into emergency mode shortly before he dies. If he looks back there all he sees is fire and death. He runs away from someone else’s burning reality in hopes that he will return to his. To Lia.

_Why are you running, child?_

_Quiet!_ “The end of days! Can’t you see it? I have to warn them!” _I have to save her!_ he shouts back.

_I want to speak with you._


	15. Chapter 15

Nothing is working and Garrus’ body is attempting to shut itself down under artificial fatigue. Shepard read once that comatose patients can still react to external stimulus, especially voices. The doctors have probably already tried that, and she does not want to tell them how to do their job, but at the very least she needs to speak to him just to feel normal right now. It cannot possibly make the situation any worse.

Shepard trudges into the mess in the “early” hours of the cycle having not slept at all. Lo’kian gives her this pleading look as he looks up from his midnight snack that he always has at this time, alone. She goes into the medbay anyway, locks the door, and pulls up a chair next to her best friend.

“Hello Garrus,” she leans in a bit, inspecting his features which are drawn into a scowl. His mandibles flicker, but not in response to her voice. She has no idea what she is supposed to say to him, but she supposes she can say whatever she wants because he will not remember it anyway. So she starts from the beginning.

“I can remember perfectly the day I met you… I can remember every detail because that must have been one of the best days of my life. You were different. I could tell – subconsciously I guess – that you were going to change my life. That whole experience was so powerful… I remember feeling crushed at the end of our days knowing I would have to wait to see you, even if it was just overnight,” she sighs and recalls the feeling perfectly.

“I didn’t know what to do because nothing else had ever felt that way before. Maybe I’m just selfish, but it was definitely a shocking experience. And then you became my… my best friend who I could depend upon and confide in… I don’t even think I felt as comfortable around my parents.”

Ironically she feels uncomfortable touching him, as she does with contact in general, but she takes his massive alien hand in both of hers anyway. His breathing is short and quick and she can hear that he is distressed. But she presses on, continuing to talk to him.

“I remember… as we grew older, I could never understand how no one else was as interesting or smart or funny as you. Or…you know… very fucking _attractive._ Any- anyway I remember that joke you made about ‘ _k’varus an’tarasus_ my asses’ had me fucking rolling,” she grins with the memory, “What a dumb joke. Or just the fact that you ran with my shitty idea to stick a donut in the middle of our competition piece… and then it turned out to be a whole new fucking thing. The prize winner. The five seconds of fame,” she leans back and runs her hand through her hair, keeping her other hand firmly wrapped around his.

“And though I tried never to take anything for granted I knew I would have to take you for granted right up until the bitter end.”

At the very least, talking to him allows her to speak about herself out loud and voice all of her conflicts; to release them. The more she talks the more she realizes she might never be happy. She cannot continue to put off facing her loneliness forever. Her time is therefore quite limited.

“…I’ll never know why I feel so out of place. I’ll never know why it takes you to make me feel normal. I will have to settle for playing pretend because that is as close I estimate I can be to someone before I scare them off. I’m glad you put up with me and listen to me and care about me simply because my existence makes you happy. And I don’t have to change myself to make you happy,” she closes her eyes and breathes in.

“I can’t even tell if I love you because I can’t trust that I know what it feels like. What am I supposed to feel? Is it what I feel right now? Is it what I have always felt about you for as long as I can remember, Garrus? But honestly it doesn’t fucking matter because it’s much safer and easier to just imagine what it would be like. I don’t want anyone to suffer through my ridiculous problems and awful, bitter personality – even if that person is you and you know how to. Even if you did love me back.”

She wants to cry about it but what’s the point? Instead she rests her head on Garrus’ chest and falls asleep. His body is calm and the tension has eased away.

* * *

Garrus can hear Lia talking to him, but he cannot tell what she is saying. He is living through memories of the past now; from their childhood. Defining moments in their friendship that put them on the path. He sinks to his knees and then finally sits back and relaxes as his mind is cooled by the wash of her scent, warmth, and voice. He is too tired to reach her, but he knows that he will have the strength to do so once he has had time to rest and recover. He can stop running now. He can return to his reality. To her. He remembers the feeling well.

Garrus wakes up and takes a moment to understand where he is. The gravity means he has been moved off that damn station, and that his sense of intrinsic direction has not failed him. His head is looking forward when he wakes up, propped forward by some raised, crescent-shaped pillows commonly used in turian hospitals.

The first thing he sees is Shepard’s peaceful face delicately perched on his chest plates, which have gone completely soft. When she raises her head it will leave an impression there until his plates harden up again. She looks like she belongs there so he does not make any sudden movements. His hand is still wrapped up in hers, so he squeezes gently and savors the contact.

But she senses him anyway and she bolts awake. The slight suction created by the seal between her face and the chest plates, which have practically molded to it, pulls her head down and she topples over, cursing. He has the lucidity to press the “save buffer” button on his visor, which no one has bothered to remove. He is curious to know how she arrived here.

Shepard calls in the doctors after a moment and then bids him goodbye after making only minimal conversation. The unnervingly-calm and strangely-inhuman “elderly” human female doctor and her “elderly” turian male counterpart who is always just a little too comfortable around her look him over. They cannot find anything wrong with him, but they are still going to bring him to a trauma expert to make sure nothing has been ruined.

Garrus’ horrible experience inside the coma left him exhausted, ironically, and he needs a proper sleep in order to recover. He is also hungry and _thirsty._ He receives temporary clearance so he can get up and move around, stretch out his sore limbs. He also needs to grab someone for a rut because his body is screaming at him. One of those females in engineering will do just fine because they are terrified of him.

Garrus thinks about the video file he knows is saved on his visor, which contains the last five hours of footage. He knows it is probably just Shepard sleeping, but he could have sworn she was talking to him. Of course, it could all just be in his head, and time is irrelevant in dreams anyway.

Garrus eats at a table by himself for once, too tired and irritable to be bothered to sit with anyone. At least the food on the _Nocveus_ is good, and Caromedus seems to know exactly what he wants. He rewinds to the beginning of that video file and starts watching while picking at his plate. He hits play and watches for a moment, mesmerized. Shepards holds onto his hand and moves her lips, speaking.

It takes him a minute to realize he has not unmuted the playback, but just the way she looks makes him wonder if it is a good idea to listen to what she said. She probably assumed he was not able to hear – she looks defeated and resigned, and her posture is identical to her father’s in his video file Garrus still keeps safe. Whatever she said must be quite heavy, as if she was confessing to her own mortality.

He decides that he does not want to hear what she is saying lest it ruins his image of her, which is already precarious. He would much rather continue to see her as he is comfortable than learn all of her secrets and risk learning the truth of her fragility. For as long as he possibly can, he wants to deny the problems that he (and Marek) suspected she has carried with her. He loses his appetite. Garrus finds a willing female on his crew and uses her company for a short time before she scurries off and leaves him feeling ashamed again. At least his body stops screaming. Now he may rest.

When he wakes up four hours later, fully-rested, he begins to gather himself. He finds out that they are still heading to Palaven to have him see a trauma doctor, and he has a feeling that cancelling those plans would make Shepard extremely angry with him. He would rather not be on her bad side… ever.

But he cannot stop thinking about that video. Someday he will watch it; or rather, someday he will have the resolve to force himself to watch it. In the meantime he will think about it and it will eat at him. He begins to assume that all of her secrets are in that one file, and that whatever she said will break him.

* * *

Shepard’s sleep state shifts and she realizes she must have dozed off. She jerks awake but finds her head pulled down. She loses her balance and crashes to the floor. When she stands back up she eyeballs the quickly vanishing impression of the side of her head in Garrus’ chest plates and blushes.

She mutters an apology and finally notices that he is awake. She smiles in her reserved display of true excitement.

“Welcomes him back to the world of the living, Garrus”

“Where are we?” Garrus asks, vocals hoarse.

“ _Nocveus_. We hauled-ass out of that damn station after… well you know.”

“What do I know?” he asks, incredulously.

She sucks in air through her nose and decides to just tell him outright where he has been.

“You’ve been comatose for three days, Garrus,” she says through her teeth. She watches Garrus scan her features and understand her.

“Well… thanks for ass-hauling my gorgeous ass out of there, Shepard, also I apologize if the stick Joker says I’ve got in there got in the way any point,” he starts cracking jokes. She knows that is his way of coping with denial. He has missed three days.

They have just set off for Palaven to get him looked at. Shepard cannot call off their plans because he still needs to be inspected for further damage. It will be irritating, but at least they will be traversing towards civilization and on their way towards finding Doctor T’soni.

Shepard gets back to work, relieved that Garrus has woken up and seems normal. They will debrief about what the hell happened back on the station from his perspective. She makes her rounds, talking to Williams, Alenko, Joker and Nissus, Jackie, and her communications officers. Then she retreats into her shell and eats by herself. She goes and does a workout by herself. She reads through updates from their contact searches by herself. It is the way she wants it to be because people are too hard to interact with.

She finally crashes at the end of the day and goes to sleep. She has pretty standard fever dreams about important belongings being stolen from her and how that makes her life difficult – or situations where she finds herself in the top of a tall building as it falls over. Or being in a moving ground-based vehicle as it goes hurdling over the precipice of some massive ravine. Mindior sleeps. The obelisk sleeps. But the monument awakens.

* * *

They waste little time and discuss what they saw as soon the next cycle rolls around. Garrus does his best to deal with the pain of reliving his memories of her body dissolving away and the fires of burning civilizations. They look over helmet cam footage and everyone is shocked, including himself, that he could have made such a sound. It sounds synthetic, unnatural, _alien._ Shepard listens to him recount his side of the experience patiently.

Jackie was not affected by the assault, and neither was anyone else on their crew; the intrusions were relegated to Garrus and Shepard only. He supposes that should be a relief considering the damage it dealt to them. Shepard’s experience was much different and it puzzles him. Perhaps her mind was just better-suited for dealing with the influx of whatever imagery they were bombarded with. They are not even really sure how the communication worked.

“It could have been a strong field,” Shepard proposes, “I wonder if this could be the same tech that forced the humans on the asteroid base to go crazy.”

Garrus smells her fear when she connects the two. He can tell she is worried that she might suffer the same fate. Garrus starts to wonder if there could be something else that they are not considering.

“Unlikely,” _too far away,_ he thinks out loud, “We have no readings that match what we have recorded here, so far. Although, that does not mean they can’t be connected.”

“It’s just those pesky five-dimensional aliens Captain Red and Commander Blue had to deal with that one time…” he sees the sadness wash over her features for a moment, “I remember Captain Red and Commander Blue had to get out of that one by using a warp field or some nonsense which could move on the fourth and fifth dimensions, but stay put in the first three. Dad really knew how to invent crazy stories…”

_Do not rule it out,_ “We don’t know Shepard…” Garrus stops her, speaking seriously, “that could be a plausible scenario. There is no evidence that suggests higher-dimensional ‘life’ is impossible, and we know that there are higher spatial dimensions from all the field theory breakthroughs in recent years,” _this scenario is already ridiculous._

Garrus knows they are supposed to be investigating missing colonies, but this has become impossible to ignore. The Primarch did say in their briefing that they would be allowed to detour for new developments like this. He has a sinking feeling that whatever they learn from their asari contact – if they can track her down – will link this discovery up with the disappearing colonies.

Without learning of any progress locating T’soni, Garrus resumes his life, taking up the reigns of command so Shepard can get some proper rest. He is happy that the mixed crew still has not had any altercations yet. He likes to believe that is because he and Shepard have set an example of how their people can cooperate, or rather, how species should not be relevant in the first place. It is a relief to see that their human counterparts do not seem to be intimidated by the much larger, more predatory turians. Likewise, it appears the turian crew do not feel above their human peers. So for now, things are holding together.

Garrus finds things to do while they travel towards Palaven. He is going to get that check-up just so Shepard will have confidence in his well-being. He will take the chance to talk to the Primarch in person because, like Shepard, he also does not trust the communications on this ship to be entirely secure despite Sidonis’ best efforts. Sidonis is still young and still unable to anticipate what an expert saboteur might do to circumvent security. Neither the Alliance nor the Hierarchy, nor any other third party for that matter, should be allowed to have access to what they have discovered until they are absolutely certain the correct people will have proper control.

He occasionally joins Shepard for meals in the mess hall and for workouts in the gym, but they hardly see each other outside of those chance meetings… in a ship that is not particularly large. He wonders how that could be statistically possible, unless she is deliberately avoiding him.

The doctors administer checkups every day until they stop on Palaven, and unsurprisingly nothing has come up. He has also been sleeping normally despite the massive mental trauma from what he saw, but it seems his mind has locked all of that experience away after only a couple days. Shepard has not reported having any dreams about her experience either. But he knows she still has dreams. He never interrogated her regarding her nightmares like he said he would.

Garrus observes Shepard spar with Quo’an quite often and it does make him a bit envious. He is not afraid to admit it to himself. He wants to be the one to teach her and help her like he used to when they were younger. He would much rather be the one to guide her and experience her but spirits know where he would end up taking that. Quo’an is already so terrified of her that there is no danger of him trying to start anything. Also Kaepler is simply more skilled in hand-to-hand than Garrus so he has more to offer. If Shepard ever wanted to work on sniping or operating he would be happy to oblige, but she has never showed interest.

His favorite nights are the extremely rare occasions where they end up in his nest discussing anything: galactic politics, engineering, the mission, their peers, their plans, _anything_. Seeing Shepard relaxed makes him relaxed. He hates himself for enjoying her warmth so much when she does fall asleep in there with him. It seems like he is taking advantage, especially when he knows she does not feel very comfortable touching other people.

But these moments – these intimate moments – make him feel so relieved. He wonders if he is starting to develop an addiction to it.

* * *

Almost immediately after Garrus is back up on his feet like normal they talk about what happened on the station. They call the other two teams back to discuss briefly, but ultimately it is just Garrus, Jackie, and Shepard left in the room to talk. The other teams found nothing of note when they were digging around.

Shepard describes her weird winding vision with the myriad of voices, but it pales in comparison to Garrus’ account. He talks about what can only be deemed a hellscape followed by an extended fever dream. It seems he had it much worse than she did, which is obvious anyway because he was put into a coma for it. They speculate about how it was even possible to receive visions with this level of clarity and precision. Shepard assumes that it is a form of field manipulation, because that is the only way to change something without physically touching it… the only _known_ way.

“What if… what if this is what was driving those asteroid base personnel insane? What if we go insane?” she asks, the strange feeling of frigid anxiety setting in over her.

“Too late Shepard,” Garrus jokes, “we already are.”

“No but seriously. We never figured out what caused those ‘humans’ to behave that way. And all we know is that this station and that asteroid both had insane amounts of element zero on them. And humans are easily influenced, Garrus. If it can change the structure of my subconscious then what is stopping me from turning into a fucking mindless animal?”

“Shepard,” he starts, the humor from before whisked away by the gravity of her tone, “Shepard those people took _months,_ according to logs, to go insane. And if you link it with the constant exposure to fields then it probably hasn’t ruined anything.”

“It put you into a coma, Garrus!” she raises her voice angrily. She knows he just wants her to calm down and think rationally about it. She knows he does not fully understand how to handle his emotions so he just denies what he can. It is exactly what she does. It usually works, but right now their defensive systems are breaking down.

“Shepard-”

“Anything with the ability to synthesize a coherent set of novel sensory inputs with just fields alone is so dangerous it should be taken immediate action against. If anyone has the ability to override senses like that then imagine the kind of horrible fucking damage one single person could wreak in practically no time.”

She jams her palms into her eyebrows and then pulls them back through her short, crimson hair, sighing in irritation.

“Space bugs…” she mutters allowing her mind to wander, “The interdimensional space bugs of sector A05…” she remembers, “it’s just those pesky five-dimensional aliens Captain Red and Commander Blue had to deal with that one time…”

Garrus stops her when she jokes about higher dimensional aliens. Higher dimensional manipulation is an idea that scientists and engineers have toyed with for communication and fast travel but it has never quite gotten anywhere. The only higher dimensional manipulation they have verified are the FTL tunnels created by the mass relays.

All the mathematics in the universe still cannot invent them one functioning machine, and no one understands how the mass relays even work. If the sphere station can perform this “impossible” feat, then it is worth far more than they could have ever thought – like a modern Rosetta stone for multi-dimensional manipulation. And it would be seconds before ten different special interest groups used their political influence to cause a multi-species war just to gain control over such a powerful potential weapon. It might also explain why civilizations like the Protheans died out; the infighting would have become unmanageable.

Shepard is a bit relieved when Garrus takes command over from her for a while. He seems to be completely fine after three days in a coma, but they cannot be too sure. She is secretly relieved that he has not attempted to cancel his checkup because it would leave that lingering worry hovering above her head.

She has to contact Anderson and give him an update, but she does not quite trust that their conversation will not be monitored and analyzed. She requests a personal meeting with him to talk about it. In the meantime she could probably get away just using code words to talk about the mission so far, and remain vague about where they have been for the past several months. At least she can confirm that those malfunctioning probes they found have been dealt with.

Joker is settling in to having to share with his co-pilot. Or rather being the co-pilot. Nissus seems happy enough there as well, not worried about her “turian-ness” when Shepard comes by to check up on how they are doing. Joker admits with some degree of defeat that he enjoys the company and that Ti has already saved his ass from making stupid mistakes several times. Having someone as accomplished as Nissus nearby seems to have mellowed him out as his cockiness takes a back seat to genuine respect.

He has always been ashamed to have help because he has a psychological need to prove his strength. He is slowly accepting the fact that another powerful individual only makes the both of them stronger. Plus, given his bone disease, Nissus literally has enough physical strength for the both of them. Shepard sometimes sees them eating together or with other crew members. Joker has really changed over the past few months. He is much happier than Shepard has ever seen him.

There is another motivation for going to Palaven that she would never dare to mention to anyone except Garrus. She may not even mention it to Garrus.

Shepard’s financial situation has reached a particular point where she can afford some astronomically expensive and high-quality _premium_ CRISPR gene mods that she wanted since she awoke to her inferiority to her best friend. One of these is a sensory enhancement mod which will give all of her senses a boost. She is doing this specifically because she wants to put herself on the same perceptive level as a turian; all senses are stronger, sharper, more precise. Not only will it give her an edge in combat, but it will allow her to understand more about her surroundings in her everyday life. It will also allow her to interact with her turian crewmates more naturally because she will be able to see, hear, and smell and feel what they can.

Another gives neuroplasticity back to the brain and dramatically increases neuron density. She wants to be able to learn new things efficiently and this will give her unlimited potential to continue to adapt to new scenarios and pick up new skills, especially languages.

The third is a more potent version of radiation control so she can waltz around on Palaven without a radiation suit if the time ever comes.

The fourth… the fourth is the most important of them… and the most stigmatized. This mod will grow a gland under the base of her throat that will allow her to produce and respond to turian rutting and bonding pheromones. If any of her crew find out about this then they will skin her alive, but knowing that she has a route to Garrus, if she ever leaves her cage and explains herself to him, is a weight off her shoulders. All these mods practically drain her accounts, but she is happy with the investment. As far as she is concerned, all other expenses are covered by the Alliance and will continue to bring her a solid source of income. These mods are waiting for her on Palaven. When Garrus goes in for his checkup, she will have the mods administered to her.

She will also obtain a much cheaper cosmetic mod to change her eye color from “boring-ass brown” to the beautiful crystal blue color of her father’s.

* * *

They strike silicon by some sheer stroke of luck. Lanaai and her team identify an anomaly unlike anything anyone has ever seen before as they are trolling through a random system on a detour from Silea to Trebia. Their scanner malfunctions and begins taking readings as they pass over the local garden planet in this system with only a number as its namesake.

_Our lucky break!_ “We’re back in business!” Riktel Ameks sounds relieved. At most they had another two periods before their entire operation was disbanded and their team was broken up.

_Pass me that,_ “Hand me that data module and I’ll get to work cramming it through the neural net,” Ameks passes Delaai Indomina the storage unit and turns back around to face Lanaai.

_I’m confused,_ “Aren’t you excited, Acronus?” he asks.

_I have a bad feeling,_ “I am not a spiritual woman and I can’t divine the future, but nothing about this seems right. Are we about to stumble into some ancient trap? Why are we detecting an energetic anomaly all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?” _too many questions._

_You worry too much,_ Visai Quo’an’s soft voice usually calms her down, except now it just sounds like a failing attempt, “We can’t know unless we take a risk. You now that.”

_I do,_ “But I don’t like it.”

Vakarian cuts in, _your profession,_ “That’s why you’re here. But Quo’an is right, we either take the chance or we pass this up.”

Lanaai huffs and her brows knit, _we are careful, first, always,_ “We are going to take small steps towards the surface. Whatever is down there is truly _alien._ Hell, we may have just discovered another sapient pre-spaceflight species.”

_Unlikley,_ Visai sounds perfectly unimpressed as she steps back, “Unless they live underground, we would see evidence of their civilization from here. There is nothing but jungles and oceans down there.”

“Alright. Vakarian, Quo’an, and I will work on a plan of attack while Ameks and Indomina work through our data. Right now, however, I’m need to go eat something,” _Third anyone?_

* * *

About a week later they arrive in Cipritine. Shepard surprises them by calling a shore leave for three cycles. He does not question it and reiterates her order to his crew, many of whom have family here. Garrus has only been to Palaven once or twice in the past to visit family in his birth place of _Verridan,_ but never to explore Cipritine, so he is shares his unfamiliarity with Shepard. And, honoring his promise to Shepard, he goes to be checked by trauma experts. He notices Shepard go off on her own but does not ask where she is going because he knows she can handle herself.

The capitol of the turian homeworld in constantly updated and refreshed, so everything here looks new all the time. The entire city has a massive field generator network which keeps the radiation off the streets, making it a major center for multi-species commerce and tourism. It is a hub of activity for the council species so it makes sense to make their city safe for them.

Garrus returns to the ship, completely cleared for damage to his brain and assessed to be of sound mind. The ship is relatively empty because most of the crew have gone out to see the sights of Cipritine, including the humans. He wants to track down Shepard so they can go eat Second together, but he cannot find her anywhere on board. He did not think she would be the kind of person to go out, but she is obviously allowed to make her own choices.

Most of the human crew are from Earth and have not ventured outside human systems or the Citadel. Cipritine is unrealistically culture-friendly, however, so it is not the best gauge for the rest of the planet and even worse for the turian species in general. Since the first contact conflicts, humanity was eager to set up embassies and centers in Cipritine to cement friendly relations, so most of what humans hear about Palaven comes from explanations and exaggerations of Cipritine specifically. But Garrus is not exactly an expert himself, having grown up on Bridge for the better part of his active memory.

He decides to head into city to see if he can find some decent food or weapon upgrades. Some proper l’okryik would really hit the spot. It also occurs to him that he could find a good sparring partner and recreational center but he avoids it because his suppressants are still holding strong.

So he goes and finds a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with good reviews online and a tantalizing menu to revel in some proper Novataetran food. The greatest advantage to operating with special ops for so long is that no one will recognize him from the news and bother him for stories. After eating, he ends up browsing for weapon mods and upgrades to his visor. His boredom finally wins out and he returns to the ship so he can attempt to make plans to talk with Victus about their findings.

He has gone around and successfully avoided interacting with most people. Third had been exactly what he hoped it would be and he has some new hardware and software to work with in their downtime as they travel between locations. He will ask Shepard if she wants to try out any of these experimental fusion places which have become popular in Cipritine, serving both levo and dextro. Just like home.

He finally cannot stand it and sends Shepard a message asking what she is up to. When he does not get a reply he instantly starts worrying, so he goes and checks every location on the _Nocveus_ where he might find her. He does find her… napping in her pod. He chuffs, already bothered with himself that he would be so worried. She is top-tier. She can handle herself without him. If she was truly concerned for her safety she would ask for his help… surely she would.

Following Garrus’ pointless nervous episode, Victus replies that he can meet up with them early tomorrow morning before his work hours begin, after which he has no time left over. It is way before Shepard wakes up but she would probably want to come with him if she found out. Garrus sends the Primarch his gratitude for sacrificing his few free morning hours to meet up with them. In the meantime he needs to ask Shepard to Second or Third, or both, before she disappears on him again. She must have slept in because it is midday when he finds her strolling through the ship.

“Hey Shepard,” _there you are,_ he wonders briefly why he ever stopped calling her _Lia_ and started using her last name. She doesn’t call him _Vakarian_.

“I was perusing the local selection of eateries and I think I found a few that you might like. Do you want to grab Second or Third today?” _It’ll be good. I promise._

She cocks her head a bit as if considering something before taking him up on his offer, “sure. I’ve always wanted to try some authentic Novataetran stuff. You know… without having to sacrifice an arm and a leg and a virgin to the gods of FTL to get the ingredients shipped.”

_Hah!_ Garrus’ mandibles flare out. She makes him happy.

“Sure, brother,” she continues, “I’ll take you up on the company. What else is there to do around here? I haven’t really checked out the area for entertainment. Any good gyms? Or what if I want to purchase a space-wastey knick-knack? I should probably know this but do turians even do souvenir shops?”

_Let me think,_ “Not that I’d know any better, we’re from the same place. I saw a sim center – I think they admit humans. I’d like to see what you can do in a proper mobility suit. I also spotted a wall while I was walking around,” he replies," looks like a _very_ nice place. Fifty meter walls Shepard. Fifty!" _Impressive!_

“Damn!” she smiles, “sounds like my kind of party. I’ll see you in a couple of hours then.”

They split up for the moment, leaving him feeling simply content knowing he will have a chance to spend time with her that does not involve worrying constantly about the state of their mission. Just like they used to.

Garrus thinks something seems off about Shepard since she came back that day but he cannot put his talon on it. She smells and looks completely the same, and she is not behaving any differently. He still enjoys their time. But the extra pauses after listening to him speak and the way her eyes move around and focus seems to be off; unusual. Perhaps he is just paranoid.

Shepard can still kick everyone’s ass at the walls, and it starts to draw some attention. Turians from around here are not used to seeing a human perform this well. Garrus is also vaguely aware that she has some modifications. All humans on Bridge have them, but Garrus thinks Shepard probably chose to add extras at some point. It is a stigma – like steroids in sporting events. Almost all gene mods are frowned upon as too invasive.

It makes him particularly antsy to see other turians, especially the males, staring at her like they are… like she is _prey_. He is going to have to talk with her if this is how he is going to feel every time they go out. He is becoming increasingly upset with himself for denying the opportunity they both need, and he is also frustrated that he cannot figure out why he does not just go for it, especially when it could not possibly ruin their friendship. They no longer have excuses like they used to.

Shepard goes and pulls herself up one of the two forty meter walls, then climbs back down with apparent ease. He can tell she is exhausted and she becomes quite heavy with pheromones when she is sweaty. A strapping, dark-plated θ approaches her and compliments her on her form and strength, and that really begins to set him off. Then the θ – a total stranger – asks her if she would be interested in joining him for a rut.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reminder (and a warning): this is a slow burn and there are 44 chapters.  
> Sorry if I disappoint with pacing.

Content that Garrus is going through with his checkup, Shepard takes off to pick up her gene mods. She must go to a different type of clinic which serves mod deliveries such as hers. She wants to remain discreet about it, especially around Alenko and Williams, who have both expressed their disdain for premium mods in the past without knowing about hers… somehow. On Earth, “crisps” and “preems” have a stigma surrounding them, and are generally seen as outsiders, subhuman for giving away their humanity.

Shepard would rather not make it anyone’s issue. Chakwas and Octavian already know about this and she is fairly certain they both strongly disapprove. They will support her anyway, as it is part of their job. Shepard does not know how Garrus will take it. She has not talked about it to him, but he knows she has prenatal gene mods. Her parents hardly ever mentioned it. But when she never had a menstrual cycle, any traces of body hair, or any signs of traditional female puberty other than (disappointingly minor) breast development, it was quite obvious something was different.

She also never asked why her parents did it either; she just accepted it as part of who she was throughout her childhood and did not think to ask questions until she felt it was too late. She understands that her parents would always have her safety and well being in mind. They are – and always have been – both highly intelligent, so she has always assumed they had perfectly sound, valid reasons.

She stops in to the clinic where the asari receptionist greets her and directs her to wait until the doctor is done with his previous patient. The salarian doctor looks her over for a moment and nods to himself as he confirms that she does have the gene mods that she reported in her health survey. He then pulls out the five crates containing the mods and lifts the lids on each gingerly, inspecting the injectors. Both Shepard and the doctor sign off on all five: the sensor-augments, the neuroplastics, the pheromone graft, the iris color change, and the radiation resistance.

The expenses of these mods are worth it because they are permanent, and if she ever has children they will inherit these advantages, except the iris color. All five are injected into her left deltoids in a tight cluster. The salarian transfers release forms to her and she is good to go without providing discharge instructions. He hands her some painkillers and warns her that these mods could have drastic effects on her behavior, potentially inducing depression and anxiety while her body adjusts to the rapid changes. She acknowledges without batting and eye. Shepard bids her temporary doctor goodbye and thanks him for his clean work. She heads back to the _Nocveus_ so she can crash early, before the pain meds start to make it impossible to stay awake anyway.

Three of the four expensive mods – the ones with the most profound consequences – are estimated to take over two months at most to deliver their full effect. The pheromone mod will take much longer, closer to a year, but it will be well worth the wait. All of these high-effect mods are very new and have only been tested on small groups. No problems so far, but it is also difficult to quantify how effective they will be from such a small sample size.

The following afternoon after sleeping in, Shepard wakes up and proceeds with business as usual. Williams has crawled her way back into her pod with her trademarked super-hangover and Alenko is sitting in the armory cleaning his weapons, drinking his afternoon coffee, and reading about the latest political shitstorm. Shepard nods amicably and he looks up and smiles. He goes back to reading, having somehow determined that she does not want to speak with anyone right now and break up the calm silence of the ship’s interior.

All of the turian crew are still out except for Garrus, who she runs into immediately after leaving the hangar bay. He invites her to eat with him later and she accepts, unwilling to turn down good company and good food. As they continue to converse, she asks about what kinds of physical activities Cipritine has available. Garrus mentions climbing walls and mobility centers, both of which sound fun.

They have walls at home, but none are as tall as the ones here, and the years spent growing her strength make the experience far different than she remembers. They are the same concept as artificial rock walls but with more natural rock geometry instead of stylized hand and footholds. It is all free-climbing with a mass field harness that kicks in only if the climber falls off. She used to try to race Garrus back on Bridge just to see how she compared, but stopped after he became too strong and too fast to even make an attempt.

She still enjoys the challenge – herself against the environment – and it is a good form of fitness. Garrus, of course, is a master. His military training has only made him stronger and more coordinated. He can go scaling the expert level forty and fifty meters walls in no time, and without showing any sign of exhaustion.

To make matters worse, there are no humans at this particular center, which immediately earns her some funny looks and awkward glances. Non Bridge-colony turians get really uncomfortable around humans wearing fitness attire because it exposes so much waist. Ironically, most turian workout gear leaves everything exposed _but_ the waist.

Everything is going well until she starts getting fancy. Shepard goes for a forty meter wall and manages to pull it off both directions. She is exhausted but feels pretty content with herself for managing it after the time away. The sudden usage of muscles that typically experience little fatigue has her developing soreness everywhere, so tomorrow is definitely going to be painful. Garrus is standing there observing as he does, but she can tell he is a bit wound up. The twitchy mandibles and pulled-back shoulders are an indication of that.

Another male turian, a θ, approaches her and she instantly commences with the eye-rolling. She does not have the energy or the patience to flirt; she never does, in fact. Garrus does not seem to remember that, however, because he starts growling. Is he… _jealous?_

“Damn. You’re really dominating the walls. Nice form up there. I’ve never seen a human move like that,” his voice is smooth and silky. He is handsome and she can tell from the beautifully crafted colony markings that his clan belongs to high tier. She cannot help but allow her eyes to observe his body, which is only covered by a waist wrap. But then again she does that for all turians she looks at because she has a… a _fetish._

“Would you care to have me for company?” he follows up, purring, before she can reply.

She has to process his request to rut for a moment. She wonders if he knows that she knows what he is asking for. She looks briefly towards Garrus, who appears totally shocked: his mandibles are clamped tightly against his jaw line while he holds his breath. She cannot do this to him, even if she might enjoy herself and even if she knows the same rules do not apply to him. The idea of trusting a stranger to be… _inside…_ might seem natural to other turians, but not to her. It might be different if someone on her crew asked, but certainly not out in public.

“No thank you, but thanks for the compliment,” she replies clinically. The dark θ looks a little disappointed, but he nods politely, flares his mandibles in a smile, and then turns towards the showers. She raises her brows as Garrus and the θ exchange subvocals quickly, the former looking quite irked and the latter still looking quite confused. She watches the stranger walk away, only to be intercepted on his way to the showers by a turian female, who joins his side and then follows him out of sight.

She knows why she denied him: it is the same reason she has not made any kind of headway with Garrus. The simplest way to avoid adding onto a list of broken things is to avoid breaking anything else. She knows any kind of recreational relief, even with Garrus, would mean two very different things to them. She does not want to find out what would happen because she would much rather focus on fixing herself. Garrus does not speak to her for the rest of the cycle, and she can see that this seemed to rattle him more than she would have expected. She will tell him… she will tell him once they wrap up this mission and they have fewer distractions.

Shepard’s final day is spent sitting around, suffering silently through the incredible stiffness in her muscles, looking over more of their data, and arranging itineraries. She knows they have a team of people who will do that for her, but she is reluctant to trust someone else to do this work. She also needs to constantly monitor the state of her contact request for Doctor T’soni, which still is not showing any signs of finding where the woman actually is. If it is taking this long then something else is going on. At least in the months they have been on the move, no additional colonies have gone dark. Maybe it was all just a sequence of coincidences.

* * *

Garrus almost audibly sighs in relief when she declines his invitation. This is pathetic and he feels so hopeless. He has never felt so jealous; so out of balance and lacking in composure over something so trivial. He does not own Shepard. If she wants relief he _must_ let her go; his fear is that someone else will take her away from him. No amount of stress relief with any female of his own specie will remove his thoughts of Lia. The θ looks confused as to why she turned down the offer, but gracefully and politely acknowledges.

_Is she yours, sir?_ Garrus jerks his head in the direction of the θ. The question was posed without malice; Garrus notes the respectful tone used with the subharmonic phrasing which marks it as genuine.

_Not yet,_ he replies without thinking, even though it is wrong of him to say such a thing.

_She’s beautiful. You best let her know._

_She’s not an object,_ he growls back.

_Apologies, sir. Consider yourself lucky, then, that you know her better,_ the male saunters off to without glancing back. Another woman stops him on his way and the two of them proceed to the showers. To think that he intended to _use_ his Lia.

Garrus definitely approves of Shepard’s declination, but he wonders why he cares. To that effect he also wonders she did not agree to it. That turian was not exactly bad-looking, showed skill on the walls, and held himself very politely. Shepard is too nervous. She has mentioned it once or twice that she just cannot convince herself to commit to it when there is no emotional investment or trust, despite knowing how little it should affect her. He cannot stop thinking about it for the rest of the cycle.

Garrus manages to catch the Primarch briefly on the final day before they cast off. The older male is rightfully unnerved about what they have discovered, but Garrus still withholds information. Turian politicians are much more honest than those from other species, but they are still politicians and they will always have resources and tactics in mind.

Garrus tells him that this structure they found is massive and that it does not bode well if they are just now finding out about it. It might be linked to the colony disappearances, or may at least give them clues about it. With the Primarch mostly caught up, Garrus leaves and returns to the _Nocveus_. The Primarch updates his directive to include investigations of the sphere station in his mission.

Once they get back in space and headed to the Citadel they finally receive intel that T’soni is, in fact, missing. She was headed for a dig site on an unknown planet. They head for the Citadel to pick up additional supplies for their levo contingency before they jump head-first into a planet covered mostly by aggressive plate tectonics and oceans of magma.

Nothing particularly interesting happens for the first couple of cycles but Garrus feels like something is off. The air smells just slightly different. When he talks with Shepard it is almost like she has lost something. He cannot help but notice her more frequent visits to the med bay, but he does not say anything. Humans have medical problems sometimes, and he knows better than to pry. What really starts him worrying is when she starts losing focus and having frequent headaches, _loud_ headaches; his electro-receptors can feel her mind churning if he is near enough.

In the period following those several cycles, Garrus really starts to notice differences with Shepard. Her movements have become just a little twitchier, as if reacting to any minor stimulus. When he talks with her the time between hearing and comprehending is far greater than it should be; she closes her eyes and cocks her head like she is concentrating with great intensity when listening. Finally he notices her eyes: they are speckled with blue. _That is not right._

The next cycle her eyes are completely blue. It is obvious to him, but other people only seem to notice that she looks different in general. Most humans do not seem to remember each other’s eye colors, they just subconsciously track it. What makes his blood boil, however, is hearing some of the slurs cast in her direction when some of the crew thinks he cannot hear. Garrus is well-aware of the stigmas against gene mods like this, but that is certainly no excuse.

He is not particularly happy that Shepard made such a life-altering choice because he finds it unnecessary, but she is free to do as she pleases if it makes her “happy.” He does not like what it implies about her – the reality he wanted to stay ignorant to – she is not happy with herself or her image. She feels like changing who she is with these genetic shortcuts is the only way to become the person she believes other people would like her to be. And of course she would never know because he does not have the courage to speak his mind to her.

But, in clear crystal blue or in rich warm brown, her eyes were and still are beautiful.

He cannot stop himself from growling when he overhears his own people talking about their commanding officer behind her back. It is a personal matter, so he cannot intervene, but if it compromises their ability to follow her orders then it becomes his problem. But it just bothers him in the first place because they should not doubt her judgment, which has not failed them yet. She has her reasons for applying those mods and they are sound, because Shepard only makes decisions by first considering how they are going to affect everything.

* * *

Shepard can tell her investments are working as the frequency of her headaches increases. Perhaps it is a placebo effect, but she feels like she can peer into her memories with greater clarity and pick out little details: specific colors and text, placements, instants. And not only that, but her vision and hearing seem to amplify; she can read the serial number on the panels ten meters away and hear the heartbeat of the only other officer in the room with her.

Time seems to morph into a more fluid concept, slowing down when she commands it to. In her sparring with Quo’an she feels more alert and more aware, and her body slows her down. This is only the beginning; she knows it will take a couple more weeks to fully take hold. The mods will not necessarily make her stronger, but they will improve her ability to predict and react. She starts to have headaches more often as things rearrange in there. She occasionally slips out of reality and into imaginary alternate realities briefly. She knows Garrus notices.

With her body undergoing its quiet metamorphosis, they chase after T’soni who does not leave a behind a very telling paper trail. There is clearly more to this woman than they thought, because no one without extensive knowledge of how tracing systems work can be as “scarce” as T’soni is. She is definitely hiding something. It causes Shepard to preemptively distrust her and her intentions. “Heading for a dig site” could be code for literally anything, the least likely of which is archaeology.

Shepard checks the progress of her irises every day and finally notices the flecks of blue coming in as the melanin slowly dissolves away, leaving only the underlying blue layer behind. The only problem is Garrus absolutely notices and she can tell he is trying not to mention it. He also notices that she can start to hear his subharmonics and she has to take a moment to absorb them every time he talks. It is a novelty for her, but it is beautiful.

Surprisingly, her irises are completely transformed by morning; a perfect memory of someone she lost. Shepard is happy with how they look: properly clear crystal blue like her father’s. She pops some headache medicine and does her best to handle the additional sensory information streaming in. She has found, unfortunately, that her sense of touch is becoming more acute, so it takes much less to get her aroused even when she does not want to be. So far she has been able to be careful around the turians, but if this kind of thing continues they will notice. She can also smell herself enough to know when she is giving off a stronger scent, which makes it easier to know when she should avoid people.

When Garrus notices the change in her eyes he seems surprised, and she can tell he notices from the way his fringes pick up by a fraction of a millimeter and his scent shifts. It is almost disappointing, but she did not know what she expected. She just knows that she wanted validation from him. He probably does not approve of her decision either.

Williams and Alenko definitely notice the difference in her appearance, but they cannot narrow it down to her eye color. They will probably realize once they look at any photos or videos of her, which is inevitable because they like to review and compare helmet camera footage after missions. Williams also likes to reminisce and browse through her collections of photos from the past so she can share them – the safe ones – with her siblings. Shepard does not expect them to be too hot on the change, but if she is lucky they will think she only went for an eye color change.

But she can hear the other crew talking about her, both the turians and the humans, because her hearing is now stronger than before. They seem to have realized that she was a designed infant and their disapproval is quiet easy to pick out. It makes her angry because it insults the intelligence of her parents – the memory of her father – and it also gets in her way. The disapproval is an obstruction to productivity. Perhaps she made a mistake.

In the following days as they near the Citadel the effects on her senses become noticeably more profound. She is able to notice if any item in a room has been moved even if just by a few centimeters. She can detect something before her senses can fully register it, like the reflex associated with touching a painfully hot object; her body can react before her mind can comprehend it. She starts to pick up the subharmonics of her turian crew members and her new mental capacity allows her to differentiate between individual frequencies as they do.

Shepard finds it much harder to interact with people with her senses augmenting. Humans are smelly – _she_ is smelly – and she basically has to sit there and tolerate it while her brain sorts through it all. Turians smell wonderful but they make a great deal of extra sound when they talk so she has to pause and figure out which part of what she hears is normal vocal speech and which part is subharmonic. She continues to refuse a translator. She has convinced herself that all this irritation and fever dreaming will be worth it someday when everything becomes clearer and her mind learns to fully process it.

So far there have only been mental repercussions, some positive and some negative. She is able to accomplish what seems like twice as much work in the same amount of time. She can recall anything she wishes from the past few days with perfect detail, down to each last character on every data sheet. She can practically see without light as her eyes begin to pick up infrared, and turians suddenly become more colorful as pigmentation and patterning is revealed that was not visible before.

* * *

Garrus notices that Shepard does not eat as often as she used to. He notices all sorts of little changes about her behavior ever since they left Palaven, but he is still too afraid to confront her about it. He does comment on her eyes, though, in an attempt to try to convince her to talk about it. He thinks they look stunning, even in blue. He has read about the process in all of his worry and anxiety in order to convince himself that nothing is wrong with his Lia. All it does is remove the melanin in her irises so only the blue underneath can show through; harmless, yet effective.

But a simple change of eye color does not explain the odd pauses or the headaches or the sudden loss of several nervous reflexes that makes her so recognizable to him. She regularly spars with Focos and Quo’an and it seems like she is getting faster. She still has to play defensively due to her lack of physical strength, but she has become for more of a challenge to hit. When she and Garrus spar he cannot touch her… a bit like a metaphor for their crumbling friendship, he supposes. She talks less and seems to always focus so deeply when listening to them talk. He never quite imagined that their friendship would be lost in the company of one another, as it slowly and quietly withers away.

Alenko even approaches him about Shepard’s changes in behavior. He hears the lieutenant enter the room, recognizing his scent. Garrus does not look up from the code he is reviewing because usually Alenko does not speak to him. He assumes that Alenko wants to talk, however, if he has come directly here.

“Commander,” his smoky voice appears out of thin air. Garrus pauses and looks up. “I understand… uh… well…”

“Out with it, Alenko,” _with words, soldier,_ Garrus prompts. He can see that Alenko is preparing to do that human thing where they are afraid of offending anyone.

“Have you noticed anything… off about Shepard?” Alenko asks. Garrus’ gaze turns into a glare as he immediately becomes protective of her on her behalf.

_Watch your mouth,_ “What do you mean Alenko? Do you have a problem with her choice to change her eye color?” he makes an assumption that this is what Alenko is referring to. He _hopes_ that Alenko is not talking about the general despondency and growing distance between her and reality.

“No! Not at all, Commander,” he says quickly, clearly sensing Garrus’ advance, “she just seems… less like herself. I served with her throughout academy. She, Williams and I have known each other for close to seven years now. She’s never been quite so… uh… I’m not sure how to put it.”

Alenko’s eyes shift nervously under his unwavering scrutiny. This seems to be much more common of Earth-raised humans. Shepard has no problems holding eye contact because she is not a _human_.

“What’s your question Alenko?” _please be clear._

“I’m aware that you and her have some history together and I was wondering if this has happened before… or is this normal for her? I’m not the only one worried about her. I’m not the only one who has noticed.”

_Please, not you too,_ “And no one else thought to say anything about that until now?” Garrus ire starts to grow, but he knows Alenko is only confirming his fears. His annoyance is not with the inaction of the crew, or Alenko, but his own cowardice to confront Shepard about it. Garrus, of course, noticed before everyone else and did _nothing._

“I mean… that’s not…” Alenko stammers and grimaces, “That’s not what I meant.”

_Of course,_ “Apologies, Alenko,” Garrus sighs and rubs brow plates, “yeah this is not normal for her, but sometimes she goes through these strange patches of… something else. She’s always pulled through. She’ll recover,” his bravado is entirely false, but he does not think Alenko knows him well-enough to pick out his nervousness.

“Can you at least talk to her?” Alenko seems a bit desperate now, “she listens to you.”

_Why?_ “I can try,” _she won’t listen._

Shepard is only holding on by threads of glass so he does not even want to breathe in her general direction and risk breaking something. While the integrity of her being seems to be drawing thin, the volume of work she has seemed to accomplish the last few days has increased. She has pulled together a massive list of data regarding T’soni and where she might be, based on where she was last seen. If they do not find out where she has run off to before they reach the citadel, they will have to look elsewhere or just go back to investigating more sensor anomalies.

He finds Shepard at her workstation, completely zoned out with her mouth slightly ajar. He almost reels back in surprise. He approaches her and feels the torment inside her skull; the strong neural impulses make it all the way to the receptors in his fringes and his forehead.

_Ow! Spirits! Li’a?_ “Shepard?” he asks, afraid of whatever might happen. He has never seen her like this before. He reaches out for her slowly to put his hand on her shoulder. Her eyes snap up and she snatches his wrist abruptly.

Her mouth closes as if she is waking up from sleep, and her eyes slowly find his. The vice-like grip on his wrist loosens.

“Hey Garrus. I must have zoned out a bit,” she says and turns her eyes away.

“Are you alright Lia?” _please tell me, truthfully,_ he asks softly, still cautious that she might disappear into thin air.

“I have a bit of a headache, but it’ll pass. Why do you ask?” Shepard is already trying to dig out the ulterior motive to his presence here. He is acutely aware how she believes that no one does or says anything without acting in their own best interests, so she will search for a “true reason” for his questions. She thinks that he has something to gain from wondering if she is alright.

_Listen,_ “Ordinarily I’d say something funny… Lia, but I’m genuinely worried. I’ve noticed… you seem less like yourself.”

Shepard looks at him coldly, “I’m pretty sure I’ve been ‘less like myself’ for quite some time now. So it could be confirmation bias on your part perhaps? You’re looking for something that isn’t there?” She says it like she hopes he will agree with her.

_Why do you say this? I’m truly worried,_ “Lia you know that’s not what I’m talking about. My ego may be big, but I definitely notice things… and I notice changes. I’ve made a career out of it. Lia please, you know I’m not one to judge. I never have been and never will be. For the record I think your eyes look stunning.”

Shepard looks away again, _infra_ rising in her neck and cheeks from his compliment and embarrassed that he caught her. She has been cornered and she hates lying. Even when she has to dodge answering questions directly she always does so without lying about it. Some might call it “lying by omission.”

“I… I ordered some additional mods… you know… besides the eye color one. They’re having a party with my DNA in there so I’m in a bit of a transient state. Lot of headaches. It’ll get better and I’ll get better.”

_What? I’m surprised,_ “What kind of mods?”

“The expensive kind. The _premium_ kind. I don’t really want to talk about it I guess? I trust you Garrus I just… I don’t know. They will help me experience things the way I want to. I’ll be able to hear, see, and smell things most other people can’t. I don’t want to be limited…”

_What the hell?_ he frowns, “What was so wrong with the way it was before, that you felt you needed to make these changes?”

Shepard stares at him like he is insane for asking the question.

“Are you fucking serious?” she snorts and cocks her head in genuine confusion that he does not understand her perspective, “What do you mean? I felt deprived of my senses before and now I’ll be able to have the type of acuity that I’ve always wanted. It’s not like I was unhappy with myself… I just wanted to have fewer restrictions.”

Garrus can tell she is lying because the only thing she ever lies about is her own happiness.

_Stop lying to me,_ he growls, but he knows she cannot interpret his subharmonics. He cools himself down. She is allowed to want things and obtain them. She works very hard to have the privilege to have what she wants.

“I’m looking forward to finally being able to properly taste and smell some of my favorite turian dishes,” she smiles, “it’ll be great. Speaking of which, do you want to get something to eat?”

_Fine, I concede,_ he sighs and looks away, “Of course. I’m a big fan of not dying of starvation, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he drawls. But he is relieved that her headache seems to be moving on, and he refuses to stay angry with her. They are running out of time.

“No way,” Shepard replies sarcastically, “I never would have guessed.”

Later, as he sits by himself in his nest before drifting off to sleep that night he thinks about what she said. He even replays the footage from his visor to analyze her expressions and make sure he did not miss anything. She had strategically avoided answering his question about what the new mods actually do, but he can infer. She said “properly taste and smell,” implying that one of the mods enhances her sensors. That means she will be able to smell other things, including his scent on another female after a rut. He has always wanted to keep that from her because it is his own form of denial.

A cold sense of fear pools in his gut as he realizes just how broken her relationship with him will become as a result of this. There is nothing he can do about it… there is one thing, but he cannot move himself to reach it. _Why not?_

He wants to shoot something. It has been months now since he was able to feel the otherworldly focus that comes with operating. It is good fortune that they are avoiding fire altogether and staying out of danger, but he is stressed-out beyond all reason. He suddenly finds himself wishing that he could have a guitar back in his hands and play, just to keep himself from going insane.

In the meantime he looks into the _Nocveus_ more and finding little things that remind him of his past. He does his best to make sure Shepard does not overwork herself by interrupting what she does on a semi-regular basis and making her eat a snack with him or sparring or watching vids.


	17. Chapter 17

After a week of waffling around looking for T’soni and waiting around for their analysis teams to give them more information regarding her whereabouts, they finally determine where she actually went: she left for a dig site on Therum a couple weeks prior and then has not been in contact with anyone since. Shepard finds it surprising that her last-sent message truly meant what it stated.

Their investigation does not indicate any sort of desire to completely ignore all communication attempts, so it is reasonable to believe that something went wrong. Shepard notices that T’soni’s (personal) communications with colleagues, all of which have been lifted from her colleagues’ insecure omni-tools, make mentions of “reapers.” All replies to these mentions are met with cynicism and doubt. Shepard feels the pressure of her provided memories from the obelisk on the sphere station. T’soni is probably distraught that people do not believe her. Shepard can fully empathize.

With the mods Shepard finds it easier to spot missing details in their plans. Usually they come up with three or four possible engagement scenarios and simulate how the combat and progression would play out. They are usually extreme cases so they have an idea of what the worst case scenario might be given the constraints of the environment and what they already know. Therum is an extreme environment already, so they do not imagine it could be any worse than it already is.

Now, however, Shepard is able to come up with and track the details for over twenty – or more – different plans simultaneously. She has every input constraint memorized and every parameter calculated. She can tell the mods are working because there would have been no way to remember all this before. She also notices the side-effect that, in general, people irritate her more than they used to. She spots all these minutia in their behavior and their appearance and it gets to her more and more.

What really puts her off is that it starts to happen with _Garrus._ She does her best to keep her cool, but if Garrus can become an annoyance to her then she might go completely insane. She might have to kill herself.

She can smell Garrus become sweeter in the days leading up to their arrival around Therum and knows exactly what that means. It is not her place to intrude on his needs. Shepard is vaguely aware that Garrus’ scent has not been as sweet-smelling as often as any other turian on board. She suspects he is taking suppressants but she cannot tell how powerful they are or how dependent he has become. She needs to focus on the fucking mission. They are about to drop into a volcanic planet and grab a rogue asari “archaeologist” from a “dig site.”

They pull into atmosphere around the roiling, volcanic planet and perform a thorough scan of the dig site. To their surprise it is crawling with geth, of all things. Shepard had nearly forgotten they even existed. It does not make sense that they are so suddenly outside of their standard fleet radius. Their presence here is as much of an anomaly as those sensor anomalies which led them to the sphere station. She cannot shake the feeling that the geth here and the sphere station are linked in some way.

If T’soni is down there then she will definitely be difficult to reach. More likely: she is dead. However, reality argues with her assumption and they immediately locate a distress beacon which they determine to be recent and non-geth, so they make the assumption that T’soni is still down there somewhere. Some database cracking and surveillance footage reveals that T’soni is indeed present at this outpost, having been capture by the geth and trapped somewhere the cameras have no line of sight to.

Shepard looks up as a turian communications officer saunters in and returns to her post, talking with her co-workers about what she has missed. Shepard immediately smells Garrus’ scent on her and allows her shoulders to sag for a moment before returning her focus elsewhere. That part of her carefully-maintained and willing ignorance is now completely shattered; _oh well._ She is shocked with how little she actually cares, having assumed she would crumble away by the revelation. She can deal with it just like she deals with everything else too emotionally challenging for her: by repressing and ignoring it until it no longer hurts.

Shepard knows they are going to need two ground squads. She wants Quo’an on her team along with Williams. That way both teams have a biotic, and Kaidan is better with defensive biotics and longer-ranged weaponry anyway.

Garrus sounds more pleasing to listen to than ever as he enters the CIC several moments later and speaks with the comms team. Surprisingly, both his own scent and the female’s are completely gone. In fact, she can barely smell him at all. It is almost worse than if he done nothing about it, because clearly he is attempting to cover up the fact that he rutted the female in the first place. Another problem for her to ignore, and perhaps another nail in her own coffin. She does not want to think about why Garrus is so insistent on de-scenting when they are several hours away from dropping in to retrieve T’soni. If he is doing that because he thinks he is _helping_ her then he did a pretty poor job. Shepard frowns.

Based on the shifting topology of this scenario, she alters their plans of attack for the upcoming engagement. They will be unable to avoid shooting at geth and even if they could, she _needs_ to shoot something. She itches for violence. It is the fastest way to solve her own problems, she has found. Perhaps there is some credence to the name “butcher.”

T’soni is being held in a cell somewhere so they need to go in there and extract her. She will be well worth the trouble; Shepard knows if someone is this impossible to track and this difficult for even the geth to take down, she definitely has answers. People only want to kill out of anger, or because their target has information worth killing for. These geth certainly have no concept of anger, but they do have a perfect notion of what information is and what it means to survive.

* * *

They do not find T’soni on the Citadel, and their contact research also does not reveal much; disappointing at best. Despite that, they spend some time on the Citadel re-stocking with some of the latest requisitions for their craft and enjoying the special permissions that come with the experimental clearance.

He watches Shepard do nothing except work feverishly to track down this target of theirs. He has been approached several times now by human crew members who have somehow found out about their close past to inquire about her health, including doctor Chakwas herself. Garrus finally talks to Shepard about it and she spills the information, telling him about the other mods she has. He finds it shocking and it hurts him to find truth in Marek’s final words. And, with her slowly-sharpening senses, he wonders how much she has heard from him that he assumes she cannot… or smelled from him.

They spend a couple days in transit to Therum formulating their plans. They do not expect resistance, but they generate a plan for multiple layouts of enemies: sparsely populated, lightly armed guards, heavily armed guards, gangs, mercenaries, batarians raiders, krogan raiders, etc… Shepard drills them. And it is more apparent than ever that she is thinking on a different level than everyone else. It seems that she knows every detail of this dig site and has everything worked out for every possible scenario.

Garrus is feeling the thirst again, but now that he knows Shepard can definitely smell him he is going to have to be very careful. The other solution is to just ask Shepard; she knows what turian customs are like, he just does not like the idea of _using_ her. He also knows she does not want to be used, and he cannot give her what she wants from him. The other problem appears to be that Shepard has the galaxy’s most nonexistent libido somehow, and that would be an obstacle with any physical endeavor of his. Perhaps it is because of the mods or maybe it has always been that way. Maybe it is something else entirely… maybe she is afraid she would be a disappointment. He wonders if she has had sex before; if not, it would certainly explain why she is so apprehensive about it. Shepard would not even enjoy a rut with him; Sidonis would be a much safer choice.

He grabs one of the feisty communications officers and has a rut quickly before they need to drop in. As always his mind is in other places while he thrusts into the female. He is quick with her and although he feels satisfied, he does not feel relaxed. This affords him another month or so to focus. He marvels at how easy it is to just ask a female turian to join him for relief and yet it is impossible to talk with Shepard about his apparent obsession with her. Normal people are not obsessed with a single person.

Shepard is going to smell his scent on the female, who will probably keep his scent on her and wash herself very lightly. She seemed pretty proud of herself for spending time in the nest with the “Commander,” so he knows she will strut his scent while it lingers. Despite the fact that Garrus will completely strip himself of her pheromones, Shepard will still notice the change. He will not be able to meet her eyes.

As usual, Garrus puts great effort into de-scenting himself so that he does not smell any trace of his recreational partner at all. He does not want to be reminded of it and he does not want anyone else to read his choice of partner. He even picked up a plate cleanser on the Citadel with the express purpose of removing scent. As it turns out, it works quite well… probably _too_ well. He finds Shepard on the CIC looking over documents and information. The communications team are working hard to sort through the logs from this distress beacon they located.

Shepard looks up at him and gives him a concerned glance. Her eyes flick towards the female who just left his nest fifteen minutes beforehand. Her rising eyebrows and sagging shoulders tell him the entire story. It is too late then. Do they have anything left at this point? Shepard may keep her tone level, she may even joke with him, but their friendship is effectively dead in the shallows. Once this mission is over and she goes… she will be gone.

He pretends to move on with his work, because if he pretends then she will as well. It is only what they have been doing for the past several months… years maybe… decades perhaps. He asks for a briefing and she gives him her idea of squad layout and approach. Garrus does not argue with her logic because she is right as usual. She breathes in deeply and cocks her head as if listening intently every time he talks, and he wonders what she senses from him. He knows what turians experience, but her gene mods are new – no one can truly empathize with her.

They will drop within the hour and head for where they assume Doctor T’soni is trapped. They are going through quite some trouble to break her out, but they do not think any other asari has her assortment of coincidental skills that suit their mission like a glove. He tells himself this will be worth the trouble, and the anticipation that he will get to see Shepard properly fight for the first time warms his plates. With the most recent intel, Shepard has already drawn up a primary plan of attack and six or seven alternatives.

Without further hesitation they gather their people and drop in. They land in a figuratively and literally hot landing zone. The geth do not waste time checking their identity and simply start firing as soon as they have sensor visual. Nissus skillfully inserts them into a well-bolstered position and then bolts off before the shuttle’s shields give up. Shepard’s team drops ahead of his, way down the field.

Garrus shoulders his massive anti-materiel rifle and falls into focus. He starts firing on geth targets, covering Shepard as her team advances. She makes it challenging for him to keep up as she plows through targets. And, as if she can read his mind, she predicts his targets with nearly perfect accuracy and specifically avoids them. Both of them can clear out geth so quickly that their squadmates begin to have trouble picking their own targets to shoot. Alenko and Focos make short work of close-range enemies that threaten his position so that he can concentrate on covering Shepard.

Shepard orders a regroup so that Focos and Quo’an can move forward and do what they do best. Garrus does not argue with her and allows them to take off. Meanwhile he and Shepard speculate about why they have not met more resistance.

_A trap,_ “I suspect a trap. More forces waiting inside to confront us in an ambush.”

“I doubt it,” Shepard disagrees, “they are disorganized. That is uncharacteristic of the geth. I don’t think they have the coordination right now to organize an ambush. I’m just not sure what is causing that disorder.”

_Good point,_ “Yeah, normally the geth are incredibly coordinated. Normally geth have no trouble reaching tactical consensus but they have already demonstrated a lack of organization here. No need to get all complacent, though,” _never lower your guard,_ Garrus works with her idea and finds it probable that, while they will have more forces inside, it will not be a planned-out trap.

Their own communications systems are having trouble, so it is definitely possible something on this planet is disruptive-enough to ruin the geth network. Or it is something they have not considered.

Garrus assumes, even before going inside this active volcano, that they will not catch a break and that it will probably try to collapse on them as they search for their objective. He places a timer on their visors, after which they are leaving even if they cannot find T’soni. Shepard glares at him but she does not challenge his constraint as the seismic activity shifts the ground under their feet.

The geth are scattered and sparse, unorganized. Shepard’s prediction was right and they progress quickly into the bowels of the dig site. T’soni is where they last expect to find her: floating in a stasis field. She is clearly relieved to see someone here, but obviously still wary; there is a reason she is difficult to track. Since they do not have Sidonis around to hack into this machine or just blow it to bits without instigating a meltdown, they have to improvise.

_Why did I leave him up there?_ “I should have brought down Sidonis,” he growls.

“We’re professionals, Vakarian,” he winces at Shepard’s use of his last name, so clinical, “we can take this down. Grab a scan for local power systems and we’ll see what we can do.”

Garrus confirms a power sources with a short-range scan and they continue to plan.

Shepard looks around the cave carefully, “taking it out will cripple the stasis field and release our guest. Might also cause some collateral if we’re not careful.”

_Take point,_ “Alright, biotics on point. When that field goes down I want you to pull her out.”

“Yes, sir,” Williams and Alenko nod and prepare themselves.

Garrus’ anti-materiel rifle is enough to blast through the armor plating on the generator. The field flickers out allowing Williams and Alenko to grab T’soni out of the way. Garrus smells the oncoming meltdown: an odd mix of ozone and some indescribable yet distinct odor that accompanies mass field discharges.

_Run!_ “Meltdown!” Both he and Shepard shout it out simultaneously as they turn to bolt. Garrus calls down Nissus to camp at the exit because they are not going to have a wide margin for error.

T’soni shouts at them as she slowly drifts to the ground, skipping past introductions, “Whatever explosion this produces could trigger a seismic event in this already angry volcano. We must hurry!”

_Apologies,_ “Ma’am,” Quo’an bows to the asari, who stares back at him, confused.

“What are you-” T’soni yelps in surprise as Quo’an sweeps her into his arms and sprints towards the exit. The rest of them follow as the ground heaves under their feet. They could be directly under a pocket of magma and he would rather avoid being cooked alive. Nissus is waiting for them, and to their collective relief, no geth have decided to emerge from the stones and shoot at them. They bail and watch as the volcano explodes behind them, swallowing the rest of the damaged facility.

It takes some convincing to get T’soni to come around. To be fair, Garrus would not just outright trust anyone either – even if they liberated him from a sticky situation. She is a maiden, which usually implies naiveté, but T’soni seems to know a few things. She is at once both innocent and deflowered to true, harsh reality.

Once she seems somewhat convinced that they are not mercenaries or some kind or a terrorist cell with malicious intent, they open the conversation and outline their objective. They have to argue a convincing case for themselves because after all, Liara does not have to accept their proposals, no matter how much they would like it if she helped them. The more they talk the more they draw her in. This is definitely the break she has been looking for and their evidence is absolutely too real to dispute. She asks them if they can go to the sphere station immediately and they acquiesce.

* * *

Shepard’s team bolts from the craft and dives for cover. The geth have wasted no time pelting their shuttle with bullets. Nissus hauls-ass out of the way before the shielding fails. Shepard’s head cocks a bit in anticipation just before she starts hearing Garrus’ sniper rifle thumping like a bass drum. A steady rhythm, maybe fourteen or fifteen shots in every ten seconds. She closes her eyes and _feels_ it. Her hear beats faster and her blood begins to sing.

“What was that you were saying about doubting our turian allies, Williams?” she verbally prods her friend. Williams rolls her eyes and attempts to take out the closer targets Garrus is not decimating.

Shepard begins working as well. She picks up the pattern in his shots, noticing how he biases to one side of her. She aims to the other side to balance it out. This makes it possible for the two them to clear out their opposition extremely quickly. Quo’an does what he does best, leaping off the walls of the prefabs and wrecking everything within reach.

Shepard orders their team forward, not wanting to waste time and give the geth forces a chance to re-fortify. She also orders Williams back to Garrus’ position and Focos up to hers. She wants both mobility up front where they can be the most effective. Alenko and Williams are going to be a much greater help to Garrus with their defensive, close-range biotics and medium-ranged weapons. Garrus affirms the order and the topology of the proverbial field transitions.

Soon enough, Focos’ dark, armored form sails past them to join Quo’an up front. Shepard commands them to move ahead to scout and they disappear in a flash. Shepard joins up with Garrus, Williams, and Alenko as they advance. After that initial assault the geth have not mounted another attack. It is almost like they did not intend to be here. The lack of proper resistance is indicative of a lack of directive. Garrus voices his concern of a trap; Shepard does not quite agree.

With an artificial time limit, they advance into a mountain… an active volcano rather. They encounter pockets of geth but they are never the trap Garrus expects. Shepard was right to assume that even the geth do not really know what they are doing here. They inevitably find T’soni because the massive stasis field is not exactly hard to miss. Shepard’s skin crawls as the mass field disturbance caresses it, and she can smell the ozone long before they break into the holding warehouse.

A holding cell is not quite the correct terminology for what T’soni is trapped inside. She has been unceremoniously jammed into a stasis field and looks furious. Shepard would be if she were in the doctor’s position. But T’soni is very much alive, and upon seeing other people in here her shoulders sag in both relief and resignation.

The momentum of her reaction, however, orients her upside-down in the field’s frictionless, zero-gravity space. Shepard laments the absence of Sidonis because they need a tech and demolitions expert right now. They will have to make due with what they have. After some deliberation she and Garrus agree that blasting out the power system will turn this device off. Williams and Alenko can pull T’soni out as soon as possible in case the generator’s core overloads and melts down.

Shepard can smell the impending trouble once they get T’soni down from her predicament. They do not even attempt to introduce themselves so it probably seems like a bit of kidnapping to the asari, but they have no time. Quo’an politely plucks the woman from Alenko and William’s biotic pull and bolts towards the exit with Focos to support.

The rest of them book it; more accurately Garrus goes _slow_ to keep an eye on them while the humans sprint as fast as they can in armor. They cram into the shuttle and exit as the volcano explodes in a fiery mess and the facility vanishes under a wave of magma. Nissus expertly dodges debris as it rains down around them. Soon enough they arrive back aboard the _Nocveus_ with their catch.

“Doctor T’soni?” Shepard pants out. T’soni doesn’t look too thrilled and says nothing. Her lips narrow into a thin line.

“Sorry for that… whatever that was… obviously we didn’t want to stick around. A bit toasty,” Shepard apologizes, “We picked up your distress beacon-”

“Pardon me, Shepard,” Garrus cuts her off, “We are Commanders Garrus Vakarian and Lia Shepard.”

He offers his hand to T’soni, who looks up at him and accepts after some hesitation, “We are happy to have you on board… and that we found you when we did. Can we get something to eat or drink? I imagine you’re probably thirsty. Therum is quite _dry._ ”

Garrus uses his “smooth” voice to speak to the asari. T’soni’s massive eyes flick between Garrus’ and Shepard’s, before she finally responds. Garrus is such a charmer; T’soni’s shoulders have already relaxed and she has leaned slightly towards him. Shepard does not like watching him sweet-talk other women, but they do need T’soni to find them hospitable and personable if they are to earn her trust and support. Garrus passes her omni-tool a text document which she scans briefly before speaking again.

“Thank you. _Niols_ would be delightful. And some water,” she smooths out her dirty white soft-shell and scowls, “and a shower. Goddess.”

“Certainly,” Garrus taps at his omni-tool, likely queuing up her request and starting the warm water to one of their guest “suites”, which have remained empty until now, “Please allow me to show you to your quarters.”

“I certainly don’t have anywhere else to go right now,” T’soni has a very calm, breathy voice, but the sarcasm is still evident through it.

Garrus scoffs, “Again, we apologize for the unexpected introduction. Once you have settled in we can talk about your research into ancient civilizations. We have an opportunity you will not want to pass up.”

“Oh?” T’soni’s eyes widen every so slightly.

“Please follow me. We will talk after I debrief with my team.”

* * *

Garrus helps T’soni settle in. Some of the crew seem a little nonplussed by the sudden addition of an alien, despite their mixed crew. Humans and turians both seem to share an unfavorable view towards the asari for different reasons. Liara appears to like their ship, though her opinion of her quarters are less than favorable from what he can read from her body language and tone. She is definitely not used to military accommodations, which is ironic because the _Nocveus_ has the nicest arrangements Garrus has ever seen on an operating vessel. They do have extra workspace for her, so she quickly orients herself around it and waits for more information about this mission.

Garrus takes time to debrief with his team. He compliments Alenko and Williams on their performance and they both awkwardly thank him as they walk out. He and Shepard talk at length about their mission, long past a formal debrief. Shepard also talks about the whispering she has heard around the ship regarding T’soni. She admits that she feels naïve thinking no one would mind it. She had assumed the crew were past pointless racism because they have had no complaints about the human-turian mix, but apparently that has nothing to do with it.

They form a plan of how will talk with T’soni about their visions and the obelisk. They have to understand how it could be suppressed or destroyed if necessary. They also have to understand what the point of such a thing even was in the first place. Any technology advanced-enough to project images into their heads universally is extremely dangerous and could be used to horrible effect.

He and Shepard corner T’soni the next day and invite her to First with them and some of their squad. She has clearly been around Earth because she goes straight for human items, specifically those from Earth. It does not even take her a moment to identify them. Given her time on Mars, it makes sense that she would have some connection to “human culture.”

“How are you faring, Doctor T’soni?” _not too poorly, I hope,_ Garrus asks as she takes her seat by himself and Shepard.

“That was quite a serendipitous rescue. Sorry if I seemed a little put off yesterday. I’m not used to be manhandled by geth and then manhandled by turians.”

“Yeah,” _sorry,_ “I apologize. That seemed a far superior alternative to being cooked alive, however.”

“Of course. So, barring that, I feel fine. I’m impressed with the craft and the crew seems very polite.”

“Thank you,” _whatever you believe,_ he replies, shifting a bit. Shepard glances in his direction with a knowing expression, “we’re grateful you’re here. I’ll deliver on my promise to provide you with more information.”

Garrus sets down a plate on the desk for T’soni and leans against the wall with his own.

“Thank you,” she slides the plate in front of herself and daintily pokes a _niols_ with the skewer.

_Trust me,_ “We came across a…” _beast,_ “massive station floating through the rim, out where the stars end. This station,” he pops one of the crispy fried insects into his mouth and throws a hologram into the center of the room, “is massive. The citadel can fit in there.”

T’soni puts down her skewer and stares at the hologram in front of her.

_I am serious. Believe this,_ he rumbles.

“You cannot be… How has no one noticed this?” she asks, “If you are, in fact, telling the truth.”

_This is truth,_ “We asked ourselves the same thing. Fortunately for you, we wish to take you there to have a look around. We know it’s ancient, but we need an _expert,_ ” _such as yourself._ “The galaxy is vast, and only recently have our deep-space sensors reached this zone… even as they travel at several times the speed of light.”

“I suppose. It seems like just yesterday humanity made itself known to the galaxy – you’d think we would have spotted them sooner,” she relaxes and takes another bite.

_Definitely,_ “That’s right,” he trills, “We do not yet know what this station is for, but based on what we’ve seen so far we assume the protheans were involved.”

T’soni practically lights up at the mention of the protheans.

“Then I shall eagerly await the chance to take a look. If you have any other data in the meantime… that may also help prepare me for an investigation.”

_Certainly,_ “Of course. I will provide you with what we consider to be ‘safe’ for your review.”

T’soni scowls as she realizes what he means.

_Apologies,_ “This operation is confidential, Doctor. I’m sorry, but we have to be very careful with our conversations. You are lucky we are giving you as much as we are.”

T’soni nods slowly, and casts her eyes back to the hologram.

“I understand,” she replies. Garrus finds her tone to be oddly certain – as if she truly does understand and is not simply providing a diplomatic response. Without hearing it outright, she can infer that they will not just buy into her innocence because she is considered “young” by asari standards. One hundred years is plenty of time to learn a few things. Her resignation tells him that she will accept what she is provided because she has to start somewhere.

They have one of their info-sec people come down and set T’soni up with a proper workstation. They also talk at length about their journey onto the sphere station, carefully omitting any information about the massive eezo core floating in there. Eventually Shepard finds her way down here to introduce herself to the doctor, who seems to tense up around Shepard more than himself.

“We broke our way in and found this inner chamber,” Shepard explains. Currently their holographic model does not include all of the element zero in the central spire, which is a deliberate attempt to keep that knowledge private. It also holds no relevance to T’soni, who should only focus on the architecture and markings scrawled about the control room and the base of the obelisk.

“This item here,” Shepard indicates the source of their nightmares, “is what we’re calling the ‘Obelisk.’ It has markings at the base of it which look like they might be from one of the earliest documented asari writings, but with some obvious differences.”

T’soni takes a closer look at the images provided and hums pensively, “These are much more like a variation on the universal prothean script than asari; but we know that the protheans had an influence on the asari precursors so that is why the two bear a resemblance. I have studied prothean script, however, and this is not entirely prothean… some kind of derivative or local dialect. We know they presided over a number of other species during the lifetime of their empire, so I assume this writing is from one of those species. I cannot ‘read’ this, unfortunately.”

She stares for another few moments before speaking again.

“But here and here,” she points to two random locations in the writing, “these are clearly prothean glyphs, and the construction lines are heavily inspired.”

“This might seem off-topic,” Shepard speak up, “but are you aware of any prothean artifacts that can induce… hallucinations? We had a bit of a problem with that-”

“What?” Liara gasps, “this ‘Obelisk’ touched you?”

“‘Touched’ is a bit of an understatement” _violently accosted, more like,_ Garrus gripes.

“Yeah it was not a pleasant experience,” Shepard mutters.

“What do you mean?” T’soni is now fully engaged.

“Wait a second-” Shepard scowls. Garrus can predict her words before she opens her mouth, and he cannot stop himself from speaking them.

_It has a name?_ “-you have terminology for this? This is a _known phenomenon?_ ” he squawks as he finishes Shepard’s thought exactly.

“Yeah,” Shepard affirms, looking equally shocked.

“Well…” T’soni looks nervous, as if she was not supposed to share that information, “… yes. There are instances of prothean artifacts providing imagery to us.”

“And they _survive?_ ” Shepard presses.

“Yes,” T’soni gasps as she misinterprets Shepard’s statement, “did someone die after you encountered the obelisk?”

“No…” Shepard quiets down, and then speaks so quietly that even he can barely hear it, “it was worse.”

“What was that?” T’soni asks.

“Nothing… so do you… when this happens what does the receiver usually do?”

“I’ve only met one person who was ‘touched,’” she cautiously uses the term now that she knows that there may be a darker side to it, “and she was perfectly normal… I guess. I’m not the best gauge of ‘normal’-”

“-tell me about it, sister-” Shepard mutters.

“-nothing unusual happened when I interviewed her. She was able to read prothean script, however. She was instrumental in generating initial translations. I couldn’t quite tell if any of her other claims were truthful. Asari matriarchs tend to grow a bit of an ego after hundreds of years… and sometimes it eclipses their memory.”

_Still curious,_ Garrus trills, “How did she deal with the initial event?”

Shepard looks over and grimaces. She is still tender about his coma even if he is not.

“She said she woke up in a hospital after she encountered the artifact in a newly-discovered, at the time, prothean ruin on Thessia. According to her team’s accounts and recorded footage she was lifted by the artifact momentarily, and then dropped in place, unconscious.”

“Wow-” Shepard raises her brows and shakes her head.

“What? What was your experience with the obelisk?” T’soni sounds nervous now. Shepard just sits up and shakes her head.

“Pretty fucking awful, actually,” Shepard scoffs.

“Lia-” _are you going to be okay?_

“Why don’t you tell her?” she scowls and throws her hand in his direction. He can see her heating up from here and knows she is about to start a rant.

_Clam yourself,_ “Uh… okay,” he moves closer to her in attempt to bolster her fraying mood. He has noticed an uptick in the frequency of these sudden shifts in demeanor recently. She looks up at him apologetically and the heat begins to drain from her again.

“The obelisk put me in a coma for several cycles,” _to put it mildly,_ he tells the doctor who looks appalled, “I saw some horrendous… stuff,” _nightmares._

“We’ve never known any prothean to… well wait a moment – I’m not entirely certain that this obelisk was created by the protheans; it only has markings that resemble prothean script so it may be from a precursor or a client specie. Also, all recorded prothean artifacts do not have the same shape language as this object. That may explain why the transfer of imagery was so… graceless.”

_What about the transfer,_ “Is there any understanding of how a vision can be… uh,” _I am unsure how to word,_ Garrus pauses while he searches for the correct verbiage, “imparted on the target?”

T’soni frowns and shakes her head, “It’s been of my research topics since I interviewed Matriarch Alessa. I haven’t made any progress…” she sighs.

“Well… then consider yourself in luck. You may have another chance,” Shepard still sounds irritated, but at least she is trying to be personable now.

_You need to rest, Li’a_ “The cycle is old, we’ll talk with you tomorrow, Doctor,” Garrus bows slightly, _graciously,_ “Thank you for speaking with us about this.”

“Certainly. I look forward to continued discussion. Goodnight, Commanders,” T’soni returns the gesture and returns to her desk while the two of them exit.


	18. Chapter 18

Shepard has a headache again so she heads to the medbay to get a checkup and some more painkillers.

“I’m running low on painkillers, Chakwas,” Shepard tries to keep the nervous tone out of her voice. The older woman hums and eyes her critically.

“You should consider cutting back if you can. They are off-balancing your hormone levels, if you aren’t careful you may suffer severe bouts of anxiety or depression.”

Shepard almost snorts – it is a bit too late for that, but she is quite used to it at this point. With Chakwas this close to her and by utilizing her sharpening senses, Shepard notices for the first time that she can smell Doctor Octavian’s scent on her; just the faintest hint. She cannot identify if this is because they work closely together or because they share an intimate relationship, but she has a confirmation bias to believe in the latter.

That causes her to notice other very minor nuances about Chakwas that Shepard would classify as “abnormal,” even for a heavily-modded human. She has these tiny surgical scars on her ears which indicate a restructure at some point in her life. Her entire face is covered by some kind of make up or treatment which make the “pores” on her “skin” look unnatural and overly uniform. Her eyes are perhaps the most unsettling thing about her, mostly because Shepard’s mind identifies something wrong with them but cannot figure out _why._ She tries not to stare as she leans back and lowers herself from the raised medical bench.

She shakes her head and wonders if, perhaps, she is truly going insane.

The headache subsides a bit. Shepard walks about the ship for a while, able to figure out where T’soni is based on scent; not something she is used to having the capacity for.

“Doctor T’soni?” Shepard raps on the open door to get her attention. T’soni glances up from her datapad and places it down on the desk.

“Hello, Commander. How are you today?”

“Please call me Shepard,” she replies. Shepard has never liked the military designation despite its significance, “I’m feeling fine. I just wanted to stop by and check on you.”

“How thoughtful,” T’soni offers a genuine smile, “Thank you Shepard.”

“I also wanted to apologize for being a little on-edge in the last cycle. I was more anxious than normal.”

T’soni nods, “I understand. I was not exactly the brightest bulb in the pot yesterday either.”

Shepard cocks her head and considers the idiom for a moment. T’soni is speaking _Theisalish,_ so the translator must have interpreted the phrase by taking some liberties. At makes sense in an odd way. She tries not to get side-tracked by allowing her thoughts to chase a meaningless idiom.

“It was quite an experience to find you, but we’re grateful to have you with us.”

“Oh yeah,” T’soni blushes and looks away, “I am sorry about that. Usually I ignore messages from sources that I do not recognize; especially ones that talk about my work. At this point I have read so many… less-than-politely-worded letters that I would rather avoid them.”

“Damn,” Shepard sighs, “Unfortunate.”

“Obviously my research into… into the ‘reapers’ is touchy. People generally cut me off after they find out about that, so I would very much prefer to keep it to myself at this point.”

Shepard nods in understanding.

“Well, we’re here to listen because we believe you.”

“Thank you, Shepard.”

“We’ll talk later once Vakarian’s schedule frees up. He won’t want to miss anything. If you are desperately in need of something… if we’re missing something… you can ask me or him. We’ll see what we can do.”

“Of course. Until then,” T’soni smiles and turns back to her datapad. Shepard exits the works space in search of Garrus.

On her way to find her best friend she hears some of the crew – both humans and turians – talking quietly about their new guest. Shepard cannot figure out what the turians are feeling from their subvocals but it sounds neither pleasant nor relaxed. Shepard honestly thought they had moved past stereotypes at this point, but asari are popular to distrust and judge among both humans and turians. If it becomes more of a problem then she will have to make an announcement about it. When she finally finds Garrus, they talk about the mission and about T’soni. They generate a list of what they can to reveal to her and what they need to ask about.

The following morning, she and Garrus badger T’soni so they can force her to interact with some of the crew. While she is amiable and innocently curious about everything, Shepard cannot help but see this as a facade that the doctor has invented to lure people into becoming complacent. Liara does not seem like a terrible person, but she has a very odd set of interests, to put it euphemistically. Liara makes a beeline for the human dishes which labels her as well-traveled and likely well-versed with human customs; or that she is simply a fan of human cuisines. She _was_ on the mars superstation for a while according to one of the their comms officers.

The more they talk with Liara about their visions the more she seems to be considering something in particular, because her questions become more and more focused.

After a moment of silence, the asari glances between then nervously.

“Might I suggest… a meld?”

Shepard can hear Garrus’ subharmonics spike.

“I didn’t think we were that close yet, T’soni,” Garrus drawls. T’soni blushes furiously; Garrus has an effect on women.

“I didn’t mean-” she gawks while Shepard watches with amusement.

“I was just pulling your threads,” Garrus flares his mandibles.

“It sounds to me like you two have two halves of one grander vision,” T’soni calms herself and speaks again, “I can provide a conduit between the two of you to help you interpret them. It may be such that you each gain a clearer understanding of your respective pieces, especially if one is encoded to interpret the other.”

Shepard says nothing in response. She does not feel comfortable with a meld because it has always sounded so preposterous to her. Scientifically, it just does not make sense that a creature can parse through the unique mental process of anything with a nervous system. But T’soni means well, and she also knows that if she tries anything nefarious there is a ship full of people with guns all around her. Shepard needs to talk with Garrus about the meld before she commits to it. She does not like the idea of having her mind potentially invaded like that. Shepard already doubts the fact that it will work at all. No one, not even the asari, has a good grip on how memory, consciousness, and experience work.

“We’ll consider it. Thank you, Doctor,” Garrus nods and pulls Shepard from the room. He takes them to his work area nearby his nest to speak about it in relative privacy.

“You froze up, Shepard,” he says, his voice low and soothing.

“I don’t like the idea of being invaded like that,” she replies, bitterly.

“Asari cannot access memories of yours directly, Shepard, you are the only who can interpret them. If you are concerned about privacy then you don’t need to worry. Only two asari who have been together for decades can even begin to visualize memories of their partner. She might feel an emotion that you felt, but there would be no way for her to take away any detail from it.”

“Are you agreeing to it, then?” Shepard asks. He seems to know quite a bit about the process.

“I was already going to ask. I… the visions I have need some… uh… help.”

Shepard frowns. She is aware that melding is used in all kinds of psychological therapy and has verified medical applications, but T’soni is not a therapist, unless there is something she has not told them.

“You think that’s safe? T’soni doesn’t seem like a therapist to me.”

Garrus stiffens.

“Not for therapy,” he hums, “what she knows and what I have seen… she has the best chance to interpret our visions. Asari therapists use past experiences and knowledge to train trauma from victims of it,’ his mandibles clamp to his face and the _infra_ on his fringes fades,”there is no therapist in the galaxy that can do that for me."

“Alright…” Shepard blanches, “alright, Garrus. I’ll do it.”

“I’m not going to make you-”

“I’ll do it,” she affirms, “it seems like it’s the best chance we have. I’ll meet you tomorrow and we’ll see what happens. Goodnight, Garrus.”

* * *

Shepard is clearly uncomfortable with the idea of a meld so he feels terrible attempting to convince her to go through it. Garrus has only heard about it from adventurous turians in academy who had sex with an asari during shore leave. Everyone has a different experience, but the bottom line is that sensation and emotion are passed from one body to another which may invoke memories. They cannot simply view memories and interpret them directly without intimate knowledge of one another. Despite her relative youth, T’soni’s extensive knowledge of the protheans make her the only option.

Shepard approaches him the next cycle.

“I’m still here. Let’s go,” she affirms.

_You are sure,_ “I am grateful that you’re willing to do this. I’m optimistic,” _rare,_ “about this.”

T’soni is ready to move forward with the process.

“Good morning, T’soni,” _a pleasure as always,_ Garrus raps on the door to get the doctor’s attention.

“Welcome,” she greets them, “have you discussed…”

“We’re prepared,” Shepard sounds like she is still trying to convince herself as she says it.

“Wonderful,” T’soni nods, “you two should be seated for this in case you lose balance. Afterwards I have more discuss; more interesting finds.”

Garrus calls down Chakwas and Octavian to oversee this in case something goes horribly wrong, and they take a seat on the padded bench nearby. Once their supervision arrives, T’soni has them breath in slowly and exhale to calm themselves before she touches them.

T’soni takes both of their hands and he can feel himself drift into a state. He begins to relive his memories from the obelisk, but as he watches they become clearer. He understands that these creatures attacking and burning away civilizations are the “reapers.” He can see that they are an unstoppable force, not because of their physical strength, but because of their numbers and complete lack of morals as modern sapience has defined them.

It is a simple message, but it is all they need. He still does not know what the true purpose of the sphere station is, but he narrows it down to either a super weapon or some kind of secure information storage device meant specifically to communicate this warning. It would explain the field manipulation tech. Several voices struggle to overcome one another, as one attempts to obfuscate the words of the other. He finally hears a single command: “reach the monument!” before silence and peace descend around him and smother everything else.

Most of him does not want to believe it because it is so absurd, but at the same time it would explain why some of those colonies are disappearing. The speculations about the reapers’ existence in the first place is an indication of their cultural presence. Asari precursors are rumored to have painted crude resemblances these machines in caves, but the asari have never disseminated information about their distant genetic ancestors. But there is someone else here with him and they do not belong within the context of the imagery he now understands.

“How long?” a female voice asks him. _Lia._

He answers automatically, _eternity,_ “A long time… as long as I can remember.”

“Who are you?” _please, I have to know, please,_ a second, distinctly turian voice, female, asks him. He recognizes it, and despite his inability to assign it a name or a face, it is quite pleasant. What is it doing here?

“What?” _I’m confused,_ is all he manages before it is over.

When they rise from the murky depths of their minds, they are all standing up in the center of the room; _strange._ T’soni’s eyes flutter and then she begins to pitch backward. Garrus lunges to catch her from hitting the desk.

_Come!_ “Octavian!” he barks at the doorway. Octavian and Chakwas enter the room and scan T’soni for any injuries.

“She’s fine she’s just-” Chakwas begins but T’soni cuts her off by speaking.

“He’s the archive and she’s the cipher. I’m the conduit,” she says groggily and opens her eyes, “Goddess…”

Of course that starts a conversation about what the hell that is supposed to mean and why T’soni is making it sound like it all makes so much sense.

“That was terrifying… I have never… I mean I have… _melded_ before, but it never felt like _that._ I was taken and dragged through an experience, almost against my will; I heard a voice speak to me. I do not think the language was from our era, but I understood it. It could have been prothean. I surmise that it was drawing on my knowledge of prothean civilization to construct a coherent series of inputs. Everything I heard was consistent with what we fear.”

“That is ridiculous,” _truly so,_ Garrus shakes his head, “how are you holding up, Shepard?” _not terrible, I hope._

“It certainly was a trip…” she breathes in deeply and exhales slowly.

Garrus almost wants to ask Shepard if she remembers speaking or heard a misplaced voice – or if she heard his own voice. Through the meld he heard her speak to him; she must have. Perhaps later he will ask, but right now they have much to discuss. Garrus goes over in detail all that he saw and why he thinks he saw it. Shepard pours her input into his theories based on what she saw. He keeps that second, turian voice in the back of his mind and wonders where that came from. He certainly recognizes it from somewhere…

It just becomes more and more ridiculous the more they talk about it. T’soni has a massive database of information at her fingertips which she uses constantly to back up her words. She also has literally hundreds of research papers she wrote but keeps in private cold storage for fear of ruining her already-fragile credibility in various scholarly communities. Garrus and Shepard are both scientific and objective, so they make no attempt to deny the evidence. However, denial is powerful and easy; many will claw their way past truth to keep themselves in a comfortable state of ignorance.

For political reasons, they are all reluctant to tell their people exactly what they have seen and what they know. T’soni is disenchanted with the asari republic, like Shepard is with her own people, citing countless examples of diplomatic arrogance and lying by omission to manipulate other species into unbalanced agreements. The asari government would absolutely try to claim the sphere station as an asset and lock it behind regulations, no matter how much they need to stop a more important threat.

Convincing the idiots in charge of their people’s “best interests” will be difficult, if not impossible. If their superiors cannot see the fire with their own eyes then they will never take the threat seriously. It has proceeded that way for every single major disaster that unfolds for every specie, without fail, for centuries. Luckily Garrus might be able to convince the Primarch, assuming they can gather some more concrete, less technical evidence. The Vakarians – primarily his father and his uncle – are close with the Victus family, so personal factors may help move his point along.

He is aware Shepard has similar contacts in the Alliance, but the human power structure is so bogged-down with corporation-corrupted politicians that it might never go anywhere. If money is not on the line then she will be ignored. At least the Primarch served in academy for many years and toured multiple times with Special Forces. His degrees in literature and history make him highly intelligent and willing to accept theories backed by evidence; he is not some blithering politician or some corporate shill.

* * *

Shepard finally admits to Garrus that she is willing to do the meld. She trusts his word and mostly trusts T’soni not to scramble her brain. T’soni seems to be excited about new data she discovered regarding the sphere station so at least there will be something to look forward to in the event that this goes horribly wrong or accomplishes nothing at all. Shepard feels herself unceremoniously dragged under when T’soni begins the process.

Snippets of speech float by “it’s a weapon,” “they communicate with fields,” “higher-dimensional fields,” “temporal lensing,” “propagation theory,” etc… they are all nonsensical keywords, very few with which she is familiar. She can see the station clearly and she obtains a clearer picture of what it does. This is how they stop something. It is capable of generating a higher-dimensional field that accomplishes “something” – disrupting “communication,” whatever that means. It is all very vague.

Shepard can see the station, fully assembled. She can turn it over in her mind and see every little detail. She can see it operate, generating a blinding light from its geodesic superstructure. Meanwhile hundreds of voices talk with each other, bombarding her senses. It is as if she is standing in the middle of a crowd of people and they all want to make sure she understands.

Sometimes she is asked a question but each one is so vague. “What is its purpose?” or “did they make it?” or “how long?” That last one hooks into her mind and she begins to turn it over like an object.

“How long?” she finally asks back. And it is most definitely Garrus’ voice that answers her.

“A long time… as long as I can remember.”

“Are you… me? Are we the same?” _are we lost?_ another voice asks very clearly. It sounds turian to her. She _feels_ recognition and knows that it is not her own. Shepard barely has time to breathe in before it collapses. T’soni loses balance, falling into unconsciousness. Garrus lunges and stops her from hitting the ground. Chakwas and Octavian are already on standby in case she needed immediately medical attention. Shepard feels lightheaded and has a hard time reeling herself back into her own head.

Shepard does not tell Garrus she heard him speak to her when discussing her journey. Instead, Shepard talks about her ability to visualize this station and its operation. She seems to have the plans to it and understands what the final product is supposed to be. Garrus has the other part of the information which explains its purpose – it is most likely an incomplete weapon used to stop the reapers from annihilating everything.

It was never finished because of these “reapers.” She has read about theories linking the Leviathan of Dis to asari cave paintings, as well as the demise of the Prothean Empire and their subjugates. They have always passed it off as the ebb and flow of civilizations, most likely the empire imploded under its own weight as oppressive dictatorships tend to. However, this new evidence fills in all sorts of logical gaps with the sudden-collapse theory. And of course, T’soni has a number of unpublished papers explaining why the reapers were – and are – more than a myth.

These abductions must be signs that the reapers are testing the waters; checking to be sure it the time has come to begin the next harvest. These visions were split up so that it would be difficult for the reapers to read them, and such that organic creatures are required to process the information.

Shepard is already thinking about how she will explain this to Hackett and Anderson. Anderson will probably believe her because he is an objective man and will always observe evidence. Hackett is more traditional and tends towards what he “feels” is the best course of action. He is honest, at the very least, but he will be the obstacle that makes her life difficult.

People do not want to hear that they are on the brink of a galactic war and that everyone is under threat. Usually that type of claim is relegated to individuals with mental issues, who have lost their grip on reality. Surely there is no reality strange-enough to permit the existence of such lunacy. Anderson and Hackett are both high-up, but unfortunately they are not able to influence the government because they are not politicians, and they do not own multi-trillion credit corporations that use their money to buy politicians. At least Garrus’ connection with the Primarch gives him a little more leeway to make assertions this bold and keep his title.

Shepard cannot help but notice how T’soni shares her own cynicism towards her people’s governing powers. It is refreshing. Shepard does not want to be the xenophobic, but the asari have an objectively dark history of political manipulation, both before they created the galactic stage and after. Humanity is no better, and the political climate has been slowly degrading over the past century. If the reapers do not arrive and terminate a race to survive, then humanity will eradicate itself in much the same way the krogan did centuries ago.

After they wind down their discussion and eat Fourth, Shepard retreats to her workspace to get things done. She writes reports and annotates schematics, filling in the missing information using the data imbued upon her by the obelisk. Some of this is needs input from a proper theoretical physicist or mathematician – Garrus is incredibly intelligent, but he has his limits.

Shepard knows Garrus has experience working with multi-dimensional field equations, but even he gets lost in the more esoteric areas like lens theory and field theory. Everyone on board are engineers of some kind – more skilled imagining mechanical solutions than visualizing how six dimensional space might curve the universal mass field, so she puts out another contact request for someone who might fit the bill.

* * *

Despite the fact Garrus does not want to believe it, he is fully prepared to. He hopes that their visit to the sphere station with T’soni will give him more time to come to terms with the inevitable. T’soni has already looked over their existing data and she has been able to confirm multiple times over that this is an “ancient” device. The protheans influenced the station’s design, but only in isolated areas, so the station either predates them, or a subjugate specie built it for them. They assume that the protheans attempted to complete this device but ran out of time.

Garrus needs to inform the Primarch about this, because if they want any kind of chance at survival they need to start preparing immediately. First, though, he will have to compile a comprehensive and irrefutable portfolio of evidence. The Primarch is an intelligent man, as most Primarchs are, so he will accept true evidence as reality, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to be. He cannot say the same about the Alliance according to what he has heard – Earth’s systems are not even united, so it is more likely that preparation efforts will generate more internal conflict and lead to counter-progress. Garrus has to assume that they will never have all of humanity’s support in this, if any.

While this is all whipping through his mind, Garrus can see the effects of Shepard’s changes. He is not blind; Shepard definitely understands subharmonics now, and he can tell it affects the way she listens to the turians on board. She can also smell everything he can. If he did not know any better he would say she wanted just be a turian and this is her attempt. Even though she explained her reasoning to him, he cannot understand why these modifications make her _happy,_ and he cannot imagine a universe with a turian version of her in it.

According to her, the headaches have subsided which is a vast improvement. He does not want her to know that he was able to feel her migraines because they were so forceful, like a broadcast, and that he has spent the last several weeks worrying constantly about her health. She seems like she might be happier, but he can never truly read her.

– Year 09AΦ, Sec 04, Day 10 –

To Hierarchy Specialist with Distinction 10A-Φ8Δ101, Garrus Vakarian(λ) [10]:

We regret to inform you that your cousin, Lusan Vakarian has perished during a classified operation. Your position within the Hierarchy affords you the privilege to know of his honorable passing.

Spirits guide you

The levity of her improving condition is soured when he finds out his cousin just perished in some classified Blackwatch mission. Ordinarily he would not be notified of this, but since this relative is in his bloodline and relatively close on the family tree, he has the right now know. He met Lusan Vakarian at a clan get-together at one point and found him to be perfectly agreeable. Garrus had been very young at the time so his memory is fragmented, but he remembers how impressive Lusan’s knowledge of programming and computation was. Lusan is… was several years his senior, so he was still far too young. He sends his condolences to his his father’s brother’s family for the loss of their son. Ultimately, though, he does not fully feel the loss because he never really knew his cousin.

It worsens as Quo’an receives a similar message, with much more devastating news: his sister, Visai, has been killed on active duty in classified mission. It seems to be too much of a coincidence that these two tragedies occurred so closely to one another. The time of death indicates that they were within several seconds of one another, so Garrus can easily imagine a scenario in which both met their demise in the same fireball. Garrus grants Quo’an the rest of the period to observe a vigil and grieve, but cannot allow him to leave the ship at this time. It pains him to restrict his own people like this, but they cannot divert their trajectory to Taetrus for just one of their crew.

Quo’an thanks him all the same; he understands his role has limitations. Garrus gathers the rest of the squad together and they hold a vigil privately.

* * *

It dawns on them that the reapers are quite real. Not only are they real, but they have been around forever. T’soni has actually boarded and investigated the Leviathan of Dis personally – _illegally_ – and confirmed for herself that it is many times older than even the protheans were rumored to be.

The sphere station appears to predate the protheans, but T’soni seems much less certain about that. It is clear that the protheans just showed up to add on to it but fell before the weapon was completed. It is impossible to tell how many civilizations discovered this device and tried to get it working in desperation, but failed. Garrus tells them that the obelisk showed him many examples of burning civilizations, so it seems like the obelisk is a storage unit for multiple “cycles” of memories and evidence; a time capsule of monumental failures and hopelessness.

As they approach the station Shepard can feel more of the effects of the gene mods. She is reaching the end of the adjustment period. Her eyesight is much sharper and she can see into more of the infrared and ultraviolet than before. Turians look much more colorful and she cannot believe she has been missing out on these amazing patterns that can only be seen in the infrared and ultraviolet. The additional wavelengths blend to form new colors which humans have no understanding of and no words for: _infra,_ pure infrared; _iliur,_ infrared and red, _amosilan,_ infrared and yellow; _corintha,_ infrared and slate… to name a few. _Naxa,_ she learns, is a color named for the same reason “orange” is: after the fruit. She is absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to see all this.

Garrus’ fringes have the most pleasing and intricate rhomboid pattern in a delectable mixture of _corintha_ towards the tips, almost like snake scales. The rest of his plates have a subtle fingerprint-like texture that swirls around his contours, and she catches herself staring at him when she finds him sparring or showering off. The other turians all have these unique patterns. Humans look different as well. Makeup or any kind of facial covering is glaringly obvious. She can see blemishes in skin – even on her own skin.

Her mind has also become sharper, and when she “spars” with Kaepler she has no trouble anticipating his actions. He can only beat her because he is physically faster and stronger than she is. Memories and dreams become clear and she is acutely aware of her own consciousness.

Shepard prepares to return the sphere station. She is anxious about what could happen, especially if they try to go back into the spire again. They do not know how far the active range of the obelisk actually is or if it will attempt to “add something” to them like it already has. Her mind has been opening. T’soni’s endless knowledge of protheans and rather unfortunate obsession with the reapers has given them some unique and morbid insight into what their future has in store.

All they have left to do here, at least for now, is to let T’soni inspect whatever she wants and then cry to their respective governments to act. Then they can carry on with their original mission to investigate those disappearing colonies. Although, at this point, Anderson definitely knows they are looking into something else and that it is important. Shepard does not have a reputation for wasting time or faffing about.

Shepard does not like that she can still hear both the turians and humans on board making derogatory comments about T’soni. She really wants to abstain from making an announcement about it at all because it will let T’soni know that people dislike her. They need to focus in the mission instead of hating each other. The humans here still have no major complaints about the turian crew and vice-versa, which is still surprising to her; she would have expected something to come up by now.

She prepares with Garrus for a larger-than usual field mission just to be safe about it. Shepard wants to leave Williams behind because she spends most of her time in a state of shock during spacewalks. She is perfectly reliable on the ground, but everyone needs to be the strongest link. It is not like Williams ever looks forward to spacewalking anyway. Shepard talks with T’soni about it, both surprised and not surprised to learn that she has completed a number of spacewalks and even a few dives before. As a bonus, she is also a powerful biotic. With T’soni on their side, they will be going in prepared.

Shepard listens to and memorizes everything T’soni says. Her mind is churning and she checks out quickly after making a snarky reply. Shepard’s paranoia mounts as she considers all of the doctor’s theories. All this talk about ancient superstructures has her wondering about the relays and the Citadel, all of which are confirmed to be much older than the protheans as well.

All these convenient super structures were all “discovered” in perfect working order, as if waiting for use. It is like an insect trap – put a bounty of honey in the center to lure them all in, and once they all gather in one place it is a simple matter to just wipe them out with poison or some equivalent. What if the reapers are leading them into a structure which makes it simpler to kill them? What is the Citadel _for?_

Shepard regrets sharing her theory. Even if they do not say it, she can tell the rest of the group thinks she has gone insane. She can hear it in the subvocals of her turian teammates or the incredulity in Jackie’s voice. Garrus takes her seriously, and T’soni seems to have a realization. The asari starts talking about how it would make sense, and that the protheans would have been easy to destroy by just removing their central rulers, all of whom would have lived on the citadel. With full control over the infrastructure that gave the protheans their keys to galactic control, the reapers would have made short work of them – no matter how advanced their technology.

So it seems hopeless for them now. They only way they would ever survive is by destroying the relays in their systems. Even if the reapers knew exactly where to look, it would still take thousands of years to visit all the planets to destroy them without mass corridors. But it would be the end of the galactic community as they know it.

* * *

They arrive at the station some days later and T’soni is glued to the observation windows looking at it. She is completely awestruck by its grandeur.

“I knew that it was going to be ridiculous, but it’s much different in person,” she breathes in disbelief.

They are ahead of schedule. After scanning the station again for half a cycle they organize another drop. This time they are just taking one squad – T’soni, himself, Shepard, Sidonis, Quo’an, Micarre, and Alenko. Poor Lo’kian has had literally nothing to do this entire time except read his novels and clean his weapons. Garrus has a feeling they will start picking up the pace once this current investigation goes through. No doubt they will pass this off to someone else in the Alliance or the Hierarchy and move onto dealing with pirates, performing extractions, recon, etc…

In the meantime, Garrus has started suggesting to the Primarch that they might have something important to discuss.

“We will need to return to Palaven to talk in person,” _I do not want to speak here,_ Garrus says.

_Your fears are unfounded,_ “I do not exactly know why you are so paranoid about speaking over secured channels, Commander,” the Primarch replies.

_Nothing is safe,_ “Shepard and I have been very careful not to log important data on any machines here. The QEC may be bugged for all I know – neither myself nor Sidonis, nor anyone on board has the experience to bug our platform… which would make it very easy for a _siel decurrs_ with undisclosed knowledge to make changes. I am not naïve-enough to believe that everyone here is working for the right people,” _I am paranoid, but rightfully so._

_Alright, spirits guide you,_ “I will book a time for you. I look forward to speaking about your findings out there, wherever you are.”

They depart for the spire later that cycle.

They step inside the spire after the short, quiet shuttle trip from the _Nocveus._ T’soni takes a look around, ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs,’ and confirms that this station indeed predates prothean-era aeronautic and deep-space architecture. The obelisk, which lies still this time around, is older as well. But the protheans _were here._ Liara cannot find evidence that they planned to leave, so it must have been abrupt. It is odd – it is not related to the mass relays or the citadel, which means it was built either before or after… or by someone other than the protheans.

It is a boring mission and nothing happens, but he considers that a success. T’soni simply reaffirms what they already know. Meanwhile Garrus notices Shepard has gone completely still and is just floating there. He calls out to her which causes her to snap back into focus. Shepard starts asking Liara all sorts of really specific questions about the citadel and the relays and the reapers.

T’soni is a bit surprised and does her best to answer. Shepard shares her theory. The group thinks about it and they all have to agree that it makes sense if the reapers are truly a reality. Garrus wonders if those mods have made Shepard schizophrenic or something because this postulation is a little “out there,” even for her. He gets it, though, because her theory fits within the narrative that they are building around the reapers. Liara continues the conversation without the same judgment, however, seeming to come to a realization about the protheans.

Every time they come to this place some new horrible truth must be revealed, it seems; some new nightmare. This whole station is a monument to the desperation of entire civilizations who wanted to survive only to perish at the last moment. Perhaps the visions they had was the payload of the device, and its sole purpose is to store a warning for the next civilization with enough evidence to convince anyone of the truth. Garrus has seen the fire. If that is what their galaxy is destined for then they really need to start preparing.

When they return to the ship Shepard says she needs to “beat the shit out of someone” so Quo’an and Garrus divert themselves to the gym. Quo’an, courteous and perhaps too aware, takes the sideline so Garrus can spar with her first. They take their place on the mats and prepare for a moment. Shepard says nothing before she just moves without warning and catches him by surprise. Garrus’ reaction time is extremely short, but he was not expecting her to begin the assault so abruptly.

“What are you doing?” _you’re sloppy,_ Garrus says between strikes, _you’re angry._

“I _am_ angry,” comes the reply. Garrus spars with this in mind. She wants to land hits so he lets her. She is not as strong or fast as he is, but that is not the point of this sparring session. As always, he cannot really get a hold on her to pin her down, but he does not try to. With gritted teeth and a grunt, she lands one final blow straight to his chest which hits him much harder than he thought possible. The sudden acceleration and the sheer force of the blow propels him a couple centimeters vertically and a few meters horizontally. He whips his legs down and catches himself before he loses balance. Shepard ends it there.

“Shepard,” _you’re hurt,_ “Lia,” Garrus starts. She says nothing and frowns as she inspects her hands.

“Lia,” _please, talk to me,_ he tries. She remains mute, turning away from him and heading towards the medbay.

“Sorry. I’ll clean that shit up later,” she nods her head towards the droplets of crimson on the mats, and then strides out of the room. Garrus stares after and gets up to trail her. It hurts him to see her like this.

As he passes Quo’an he mutters, “Why don’t you clean that up now,” _kindly. I apologize,_ Quo’an nods and makes his way to the maintenance closet. He realizes while he trails her to the medbay that she responded directly to his subharmonic comment; she clearly heard it and understood it.

* * *

Shepard does not like it here – this station has only lead them deeper into this rabbit hole. So far they have figured out that there might be this super-critical galactic threat. They have not determined what this station actually does when used, other than cast some kind of field disturbance. Knowing how to finish the project does not mean that she can access all parts of it in her mind – it is like a step-by-step process where she has to see one part completed in order to reach another. And knowing the end result does not mean that she knows the details of the consequences of its activation. It is a field-based device… that is all she can be sure of. It does some manipulation of higher dimensional fields that none of them have any comprehension of, including herself.

Shepard needs to drain her ire with violence, a rather new concept to her seemingly brought on by the recent modifications. Garrus and Quo’an follow her to the mats and Quo’an steps aside. As soon as Garrus’ outer armor is off she begins her assault, not caring if she is sloppy. She is not sparring to pin him, she is literally trying to beat the shit out of something to dissipate energy.

She can tell he is letting her hit him. She knows he is putting himself in her way so she will have to use her energy to move him. It works really well. She feels the tension building up – over twenty years of pent up longing for him and hopelessness that nothing matters anyway. Finally she delivers one final blow to his chest which launches him back. She cannot continue. It is over. Based on the pain, she thinks she might have fractured either something in her wrist or something in her fingers. There are droplets of her blood on the padding. She does not stop Garrus calls to her, but she does not stop him as he trails her to the medbay.


	19. Chapter 19

They locate some kind of clearing using their telescope, but the atmosphere’s thick, natural turbulence and the rolling layers of clouds make any detail smaller than fifty meters across impossible to distinguish. This clearing is perfectly aligned with the epicenter of the anomalous EM readings, and further spectrogrpahical scans indicate the presence of synthetic alloys. Something large is lurking down there. They cannot make any assumptions, because to do so would risk underestimating the object they are dealing with. There are no signs of sapient life down there, so they _assume_ that they will not be harassing anyone if they drop in to investigate.

Her entire team loads their single, yet sizable shuttle with the outpost equipment and take off to go get their hands dirty.

_Interference,_ “Comms are breaking up,” Lusan calls out as they descend into atmosphere.

_That’s no good,_ “Then we’re turning around and going back. I _refuse_ to allow us to go any further without maintaining full contact with mother. Head back!”

Quo’an glances back and does as she is told, looking rather disappointed. The rest of her team sit there awkwardly and stare at her, but they do not argue with her orders.

_Listen,_ “We aren’t abandoning this mission, but neither are we going to go in without a lifeline.”

_Not arguing,_ “Of course, ma’am,” Riktel nods.

She decides they will cannibalize their ship’s only backup QEC relay and make the shuttle herself into a mobile outpost. She and Vakarian draw up the plans and then her entire team sets to work modifying and mutilating the poor machine; to make her into something greater. It requires an entire period of work and several awkward reports to command about why their backup relay is unresponsive. She cannot lie to them, and without faltering she asserts that what they have discovered merits the unorthodox modifications. Command stays out of her way, for once, and allows her team to continue with their current objective because they are just as intrigued about this anomaly.

With their lovingly-crafted monstrosity prepped for flight, they set off for the ground once more. Their comm channel routes through the QEC unit strapped to the shuttle which draws power from a secondary shuttle drive core strapped to other side. Panels from the shuttle bay walls and spares from their supplies are welded over the equipment they crammed into the shuttle. She is not pretty, but she is going to do the job and she is going to keep them safe.

Their craft holds as they descend into the turbulent atmosphere, and their communications channel to the _Derilus_ remains clear and clean. The radiation from the point of interest becomes stronger as they draw nearer and it begins to induce headaches in the shuttle’s occupants despite the mass effect and EM shielding of their suits and the shuttle’s armor. After several minutes of bated breath and mounting anxiety they breach the cloud layer and get their first decent view of the clearing from altitude.

A massive, alabaster tower stands defiantly in the center of the clearing, the obvious source of the field anomalies. They circle the clearing at a kilometer above the ground, keeping their eyes on the readings in case the alien structure reacts to their presence. Suddenly their investigation has become several orders of magnitude more interesting.

_Carefully,_ “Alright bring us down,” Lanaai commands.

_Farther out,_ “take us into that attached clearing over there,” Lanaai gestures to a patch of trees that looks sparse-enough to permit their shuttle to land.

The shuttle touches down at the outskirts of the clearing, which is much larger and more circular than they thought. The trees seem to simply end and leave nothing but dirt for a kilometer and half radius around the object, which towers above the canopy line at thirty meters or so. If this thing is responsible for shearing off all the flora surrounding it and keeping the ground entirely devoid of life, then there is no way their occupation here can be healthy. Her team dons their helmets and piles out into the entirely breathable, non-toxic atmosphere. They could all do with some fresh air, but she is not willing to take any risks. Once they settle down she will consider it.

They spend the rest of the day unpacking their gear and setting up camp in this flawed paradise. At least she feels safe around these people who she knows have her back at all times. The heartbeat signal pulses in time with the _Derilus_ , reassuring them that they still have a clean connection. Once they have camp setup they transition into their “off-hours” by staring up at the night sky. Fauna might be a problem, but so far they have not been bothered, and the auto-turrets on the perimeter are powerful enough to take down a maw if necessary – hopefully it does not come to that.

Lanaai finds herself drifting in and out of sleep as she lies there in the perfectly temperate night air. She gazes at the starport looming in the distance, past the chain link fencing, and marvels at the starships in the distance. Her best friend wraps an arm around her shoulders and speaks without words. She glances over at him and smiles, wrapping the five fingers of her right hand around his wrist and looking back up at the stars. He points to something in the sky as she drifts away from him, wondering where she could be heading. Her eyes grow wide as she careens towards the sun and feels her chest begin to burn.

She tears the sleeping bag open and bolts upright in her tent, glancing around and attempting to locate herself in reality. She pokes her head through the synthetic canvas and glances around at the outpost they setup earlier today. Everything is still, and her team are all still asleep. No reports of movement so far… she settles back down in her sleeping bag and shivers, despite the warm night air.

* * *

Garrus stands there as the elderly human doctor inspects her patient. He feels like this is his fault. He has this nagging idea that if he does not try to talk to Shepard now, he will regret it later. When Shepard takes her leave, offering him a smile specifically designed to mislead him, he asks Chakwas how she is doing.

_I need to know,_ “Is there anything that I should be concerned about? She’s been getting…” _worse,_ “she hasn’t been improving,” _I am so worried._

“I cannot violate patient confidentiality, Commander…” the woman levels her almost silvery gaze to his. But after a moment of looking at him and searching in his eyes for something she continues to speak.

“But… because she has you listed as her medical beneficiary, you have the right.”

_What?_ he trills, shocked.

Chakwas does not allow him to attempt a question and continues speaking, “Shepard is suffering – she’s physically healthy… actually a bit on that in a moment… but she’s extremely depressed. The mods she obtained recently are not helping and have created some kind of deteriorating psychological complex that is making it more difficult for her to tell the difference between dreams and reality. Her serotonin levels are astronomically low, and they do not change even under artificial stimulus.”

Garrus’ mandibles are flared open in shock. Chakwas continues after taking a breath.

“Now, physically… she has a regressive trait on her father’s side that tends to lead to brain cancer if her hormone levels continue to remain as unbalanced as they are now. We’ve learned about this because it has just now become a problem… as in five minutes ago it became a problem… it’s one of the reasons why she has migraines. But knowing her… I highly doubt she will ease up. It’s only a matter of time. We can tell her to slow down all we want, but she is stubborn.”

Chakwas sighs and shakes her head. Garrus cannot believe it and almost asks her if she is joking. But why would she? Octavian, standing quietly in the corner, just shakes his head.

_I need to know,_ “Why… why do you think she’s like this?” _I beg of you._

“I suspect it’s always been this way. Not all humans are created equal and everyone has a vastly different personality. That sounds like an obvious statement, but sometimes we forget… when they are close to us. The gene mods she obtained are also catalyzing the deterioration. Normally it wouldn’t be such a problem but something else is happening with Shepard that’s making it worse.”

Chakwas glances back at Octavian for a moment, and he can see something passes between the two.

“Not everyone is immune to side effects, and two of the five gene mods she acquired recently are experimental. It’s why I do not recommend mods as profound as those, even if they were fully tested.”

Garrus does not want to believe it. He needs to believe that Shepard is not a lost cause. He will not be able to live with himself if she withers away and dies while he watches and does nothing, or rather, watches and has no power to help her. Chakwas shakes her head sadly and breathes out a resigned sigh as she moves off to the corner of the room to check her terminal. Octavian steps into his personal space next and speaks incredibly softly.

_There might be time,_ “I don’t know what your standing is with Shepard… but she needs _you._ She responds profoundly to your presence, so there is a non-zero probability you two are… compatible; She has a binding mod that has not fully taken effect, but will in several sections… now as much as I find that repulsive, I understand why she did it,” Octavian glances briefly towards Chakwas and then turns back to continue speaking.

_What?_ Garrus trills again. But of course Shepard kept that from him.

“The changes for that mod are still far off, but there is a chance,” _it’s not pretty. But a chance is a chance._ “If you tell her what she wants to hear, then it may trigger such a positive response that her hormones will balance themselves out and she will stabilize. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing,” _so consider your actions seriously._ “I know it sounds strange, but it’s all we can think of at this point, based on cases we’ve seen in the past.”

_What cases?_ Garrus trills, surprised. Octavian simply steps back without responding, and returns to his station.

Garrus makes his rounds and talks with his squadmates before settling into his nest for rest. He is mentally preparing himself for how to best approach talking to Shepard about why she is like this and what he needs to be for her in order to fix it. They can make it work. Maybe if they start down that path he can be exactly what she needs him to be. The more he reasons with it in his mind the better the idea becomes.

He lets the Primarch know about their current course of action. They are going to stop on the Citadel so Shepard can meet with her contact – Anderson – the man who put her on this ship with him. Within three periods they will be back on Palaven to talk with the Primarch about this very real threat, the station, and what they think needs to be done before it is too late.

* * *

Chakwas judges her while she fixes up Shepard’s fractured radius. Octavian judges her from the corner of the room. Garrus is also there… to judge her, she supposes. This is great. She really _enjoys_ being judged by people. She is not even sure why Garrus came with her, but she can hear his subvocals and he sounds concerned.

Shepard is glad that least Octavian understands why she is injured like this. Garrus does not smell too great; he does not smell happy. The ordinarily bright _corintha_ -tinted patterns on his fringes are dull and his overall body heat is slumping. Octavian does not smell particularly happy either. Shepard just wants to leave the room as soon as possible and get back into the last thing she was working on. The shuttle needs some upgrades and she is installing mods for fun. Then she has to start writing reports to convince someone that they need to mobilize a full-scale war effort.

Shepard is content as she works. Alenko eventually shows up in the hangar bay and spends some time cleaning his armor and weapons. They chat a little about this whole ordeal and shoot the shit about their latest good reads and opinions on things other than shooting at people. Kaidan is a fan of op-ball, a guilty pleasure for him because humans are not supposed to enjoy turian sports, and he keeps up with the latest matches. Sometimes he and Garrus will get into heated discussions about their predictions. Championship is approaching and Alenko is looking forward to seeing his favorite team destroy everyone. Shepard is not a fan of sports, but she knows some of the names and she knows the rules so she humors him.

Eventually it is just her again and she continues her work in silence. She takes a break to check on Joker and Nissus, both of whom are doing perfectly fine. They are on their way to the Citadel to meet up with Anderson and potentially a Spectre who can give them some extra leverage.

Shepard finds the least-popular time to eat in the mess hall and has her late-cycle meal before heading off to bed. Her wrists are going to be tender for at least a week and the rest of her body is sore from her punching and kicking session earlier with Garrus. What she did was rash, and she should probably just ask Sidonis for a rut to burn off the rest of her stress. As much as she desires to end up with Garrus, she cannot start out with him and risk injuring herself; Garrus would never forgive himself if he hurt her. She settles into bed and goes to sleep with this odd uneasy feeling.

She switches on her white-noise generator so she cannot hear her own body pumping blood, digesting food, and breathing. She thinks about Garrus. She has a hard time convincing herself that even if they were in a relationship that she would somehow become a happier person; she deeply fears it, in fact. She does not want to disappoint him, but at the very least she could have a chance once the binding mod takes effect… if she still has access to him in several months.

* * *

They get to work the following cycle. They stretch and make use of their limited space to squeeze in a morning workout before they eat rations for First. Lanaai scans their perimeter for signs of disturbance and thrums contentedly when she finds none. The _Derilus’_ heartbeat is still clicking softly away in her ear. She will take what little solace she can in this truly unknown place. They are silent through their routine, still gathering themselves and enjoying the tranquility before they have to put their minds to work for the remainder of the day, and she does not expect a respite once they begin their pursuit. The sun crests the tree-covered mountains in the distance and douses their campground with a web of shadows. They fire up their equipment and set their standard procedure into motion.

The only communication passed between them is the occasional subharmonic command, but they refrain from speaking.

_Good to monitor,_ “Alright,” Ameks finally breaks the silence, “I’m going to start preliminary scans.”

_Of course,_ Quo’an chirps, “I’ll be your second set of eyes.”

“We’ll get to work setting up the drone for flight later today,” _if we’re lucky,_ Lanaai nods to Ameks and Quo’an. Delaai accompanies her into the shuttle’s small cargo bay where they have a pair of disassembled recon drones waiting for them.

_I’m scouting,_ Lusan straps a DMR to his back and loads up on thermal magazines, “I’ll keep in touch. If we need to be here longer than several days then we’ll need to know more about our surroundings.”

“If your heartbeat signal with _Derilus_ deteriorates, then return to base immediately,” _spirits guide you,_ Lanaai chirps and allows him to take off. The rest of them take up their positions and begin their work. Lanaai keeps an eye on Vakarian’s progress around their perimeter and notices just how quickly his telemetry broadcast disappears into nothing until just the heartbeat signal is left, pulsing unevenly as the monitoring system struggles to pick up the broadcast. The EM disturbances here must only be the beginning if radio signals are also suffering like this.

Ameks and Quo’an chatter outside at their data terminal as they pour over their readings, while herself and Delaai work through the assembly and calibration of their drone.

_What is it,_ “What do you think this structure is actually for?” Indomina asks as they work, _screw driver,_ she chirps to Lanaai, who passes over the toolbox.

_No idea,_ “I can’t tell,” Lanaai replies, pausing for a second to gaze out of the shuttle bay and observe the massive tower framed by the open bay doors, “But it must be important if it is this ‘well defended.’ Who would go to such a length to protect whatever is in that thing by having it generate such powerful ME and EM disturbances?”

_Beats me,_ “I hope our poor drone here will actually function when we send into the ‘DMZ’ out there.”

_We won’t stay if so,_ Lanaai scowls, “It better. This drone is designed specifically to operate in these conditions.”

Lanaai inherently distrusts equipment that she has not assembled herself. Most of these components are pre-packaged and she just has to assume they have been properly checked. The last time she trusted equipment was before her father died to a malfunctioning piece of _unchecked_ hardware. Even when she does not think about her father’s death, the tendency is still burned into her mannerisms and mentality.

They break for spar and Second and Vakarian makes an appearance.

_There you are,_ “Nice of you to finally turn up,” Riktel leans against the shuttle’s exterior and takes a bite from his ration bar.

_There is nothing out there,_ “I swept the area. It’s just jungle… all flora and no fauna. Doesn’t bode well.”

“Come on,” _so paranoid,_ Visai fires back, sounding amused, “This planet could be pre-fauna. Garden worlds aren’t required to have animal life.”

Vakarian shakes his head and points to something. Their heads turn all at once to find what he has indicated with his outstretched arm. Way off in the distance there are birds of some kind, perched on a branch of one the massive trees. Visai sulks from just how swiftly Vakarian took her down.

_This place is cursed,_ “I’ve felt uncomfortable here since we landed yesterday. Maybe I am just paranoid, but I don’t ordinarily feel this way. Have those scans turned up anything new?” _please give an explanation,_ he inquires.

_Same old,_ “Nothing we did not observe already when we circled the site. Are you particularly EM sensitive? Aren’t your… never mind,” _sorry, I misspoke._

_Stereotypes?_ “What? Aren’t all Vakarians EM sensitive?” he gripes, _is that what you were about to ask?_

_Hey now, I apologize,_ Quo’an trills, “I’m sorry.”

_I’m on edge,_ “Sorry,” Vakarian shakes his head, “I’m more stressed than normal. And yes, I am very EM sensitive, so that could just be the simple explanation.”

_Need space?_ “Should we give you two some privacy?” Lanaai asks, concerned that Lusan’s level of stress will impair his ability to cooperate with the team. Lusan and Visai exchange a glance and Lanaai raises her brows in question. Lusan bows his head and nods to Visai, who follows him into the shuttle. The four of them haul the mostly-assembled drone and the remaining hardware as far forward as possible so they can seal off the back of the bay with a divider. The two engineers continue to work on the drone while their analyst and operator disappear behind the divider.

_Almost done?_ Riktel calls out from his post outside with the monitoring equipment, “We’re running low on daylight; we’ll probably want to get the drone on run before sundown.”

_Nearly so,_ “We can probably haul the rest of this outside and start booting up subsystems,” Delaai notes.

_Good plan,_ Lanaai chirps, “Sure. Grab those adapters and start setting up with Ameks.”

_Yes ma’am,_ her colleague nods.

The drone reports blue on all systems shortly thereafter. Delaai and Riktel review their autonomous scouting program and flight plan because they know once they set the drone off on its task, it will be on its own until it returns. The elegantly-designed and aerodynamic drone hums to life and hovers there, awaiting further instructions.

_Now or never,_ “Alright send it,” Indomina commands. Ameks flicks his wrist, and with a few expert keystrokes he sends the massive flying beast forward into the barren clearing towards the monument. Within seconds of crossing the threshold from the jungle to barren ground, they lose contact with the drone. Luckily, however, their brave machine forges ahead without showing any sign of equipment failure. The three of them stare after it as its silhouette shrinks into a barely-perceptible smudge of black against the alabaster expanse of the anomalous spire. Eventually Riktel, even with his incredible eyesight, has to pull optics in order to keep his eyes on the drone’s details.

_It’s doing great,_ “Program is clearly holding. Behavior is nominal,” Riktel comments as he peers through his optics, “Now we just have to wait here until while it comes back,” _anxiously._

When the drone lands gracefully in the center of their outpost, they huddle around it excitedly to recover the data it gathered from very near the monument. Vakarian and Quo’an rejoin them just as they begin to sift through the file system and open files for viewing.

_What?_ “Nothing…” _I’m confused,_ Ameks cocks his head and does another search through the data, _nothing,_ “It’s just… _normal_ looking data.”

_Impossible,_ “The mass field-” Lanaai starts.

_Normal,_ “Completely normal,” Ameks cuts her off, sounding quite bothered.

_Calm yourself,_ “We’ll scour the rest of the data for anomalies. We’ll send it back out tomorrow,” Lanaai puts her hand on his shoulder reassuringly. This monument is making them all paranoid where they would ordinarily remain unfazed. Vakarian watches them with an inscrutable expression, but Lanaai can tell he is searching for confirmation that he is not alone in feeling like a total alien on this still planet. Riktel gazes out at the barren expanse and seems to consider it for a while before turning back to the data at hand.

_Need some more time,_ “We’ll just look through it some more and hope something pops out.”

Lanaai glances over at Visai and nods to the terminal before replying to Riktel.

_Rut first,_ “No. Quo’an can start with the data now. I will help you clear your head.”

_Yes ma’am,_ Riktel sighs and drops his datapad back on the table to follow her into the shuttle. Vakarian and Quo’an left no evidence behind whatsoever from their activity back here which makes things significantly easier. Once they pass the divider she helps her companion strip out of his armor while a purr bubbles up into her throat. She probably needs this as much as he does, but she is far better at holding herself together under high-tension than most. The relief will be incredibly welcome, however, and she quickly sheds her armor so she can hurry up and feel his plates on hers.

She turns around and presents herself to him, gripping one of the handrails in preparation and ghosting a talon over her seam. He snarls without any real ferocity, and pushes his abdominal cowling into the gap between her _rocollus_ plates. His guideplates extend and hook into her sheath, and the familiar sensation of being filled washes over her. She sighs and allows herself to relax as one of his hands finds purchase on her cowl and the other on her waist. He lowers himself and shifts one leg forward for a better angle and greater stability, and she sinks with him.

Her tail shifts out of the way as he draws himself out of her, nearly to the flared head of his member, but her guardplates snap together and stop him from getting away. His grip tightens and he jerks his hips forward, raking his flared platelets down the length of her sheath and bottoming out against her _cilix._ He sets a brutal pace, indicating that he was far more stressed than he let on. This is not her first time with him, but he does seem particularly more spirited than she remembers – usually he prefers longer, decisive strokes, but right now he seems intent on fucking the spirits out of her. Eventually her feet leave the ground as he takes control over the rest of her body. Her legs go wherever he decides while his plates crack against hers.

His character returns after some time of this intensity, and he slows down to his usual pace. He allows her to land, and her feet return to the metal grating below once more as he continues to slide his tail in and out of her. Soon-enough, his back meets the wall on the opposite side of the small room, and she is in charge of their final satiating movements. Her legs are shaking when she finally comes to a halt with him still buried deep within her, too relaxed to pull herself off of him. Riktel sinks to the floor and holds her in his lap while they both come to. He slides out of her as her grip on his tail diminishes, and her guardplates finally open wide-enough to permit him to leave.

He stands up with her and sets her back on her feet while her coordination and strength return.

_Thank you,_ “Wow, I needed that much more than I thought,” _spirits,_ she chirps and shakes her head.

_Likewise,_ “It’s been quite some time. But I do think Vakarian has a point. Something isn’t right about this place. I didn’t realize how bad it was getting until now.”

They neutralize the spilled lubricant and purge their pheromones, then don their armor. They still have work to do, but at least their minds will be free from strain.

* * *

Garrus wakes up immediately and packs into his armor when his omni-tool goes off in the middle of sleep cycle. Nissus calls him to the bridge and she does not sound too pleased.

_Something is horribly wrong,_ “Comms suspect that we are being followed.”

Before Garrus can ask how that is possible in the fastest ship ever constructed, Joker speaks.

“They either have a death wish, or we should be worried.”

Garrus thinks on it for a moment.

_I am nervous,_ “If we leave the FTL stream they will throw off whoever is following us. We can take a detour and wait it out in full stealth mode, using a planet or a star as a mask.”

Her tone does not inspire confidence. Garrus orders the maneuver. The universe around them squashes into focus and they streak towards the local star. Unfortunately, so does their stalker. When their ship is clipped by some unknown energy weapon, they throw up the alarm and dump an SOS to Blackwatch Command. The _Nocveus_ is not equipped to deal with ship-to-ship combat.

Their pursuer keeps firing at them. Garrus cannot quite identify the weapon but it sparks recognition. It is clearly a beam, so probably a laser, but it could be something he does not understand. No modern manufacturer makes laser-based weaponry because it is too cumbersome and slow compared to the faster-than-light projectile weaponry they have now. He recognizes the craft from his nightmares: that is definitely a reaper. Even if they do not survive, he will make damn sure this gets to the Primarch. If this is not true evidence that the reapers exist then he does not know what else is.

T’soni has found her way to the CIC, which is probably not the best place for her right now, but he has a chance to explain to her that this craft matches the one he saw in his nightmares. Shepard barges into the CIC in a full hardsuit, barking at their comms team, and almost throws T’soni back into the hall.

Garrus leaps towards her as the ship rocks and the artificial gravity begins to fail. Moreau and Nissus are doing their best to avoid the beam weapon, but the reaper is too fast and their craft is not quite fast enough. The beam knocks out three of their four mainsails which means they can no longer travel in a straight line. The core power is failing fast. Garrus calls the order for all hands to abandon ship. The instant their shields are down that beam weapon will fry anyone left on board.

“Fuck!” she curses and turns towards the cockpit where Joker and Nissus are still attempting to save their ship,“go get them out of here! I’m going to go sweep the what’s left of the decks to make sure everyone else is out!”

Before she can turn away Garrus grabs her shoulder and spins her to face him. Shepard looks up at him through her helm curiously, waiting calmly despite the cacophony unfolding all around them. He leans forward and presses the crown of his helm against hers, and he can feel the faintest glow reach through several layers of ceramic plating and carbon weave. Her vitals spike and her pupils dilate.

“We’re going to make it out of this, Lia,” _we will. I promise._

“We will. Then we’ll figure this out,” she responds and withdraws, “now go!”

Garrus has to grab Moreau and shout at him to give up the ship. Nissus drags him with her and heads for her pod while he protests feebly. With the bridge empty Garrus makes his way back to his own pod. He checks on the status of his crew members using his omni-tool – already eighty percent of the pods have jumped out and are reporting without problem. Remaining crew on board are nearly gone as well. _Safe._

He is honestly impressed that there have been no fatalities so far; a testament to the construction of this craft. On his final sweep he encounters Shepard again as she finishes up. She nods to him before making her way towards the human quarters where her pod is located. The shields fail and the beam tears the ship right in two. Garrus stumbles into his pod and readies for ejection. He links his communication line to Shepard’s

_Speak to me,_ “Are you okay, sister?” he calls to her.

“Of course, brother,” she replies, not sounding particularly worried, “I’m at my pod, I’ll see you on the other-”

Garrus hears her comm line cut out and her vitals go red immediately.

This cannot be happening.

She just told him she was about to make it out. They were just about to make it right.

When the line recovers he hears her speaking very, very quietly. But he can hear it perfectly.

* * *

Shepard wakes the hell up and crams into her armor the moment the alarm begins blaring. She thinks twice and grabs a hardsuit from engineering before turning back towards the bridge. She immediately looks at her omni-tool for information as she books it to the bridge. She is already dishing out orders by the time she reaches the CIC. She takes control over their external cameras – their pursuer is literally in visual range.

Garrus gives her this grave look and his subharmonics shake, _I am terrified,_ “That’s what I saw – that’s a reaper.”

T’soni stumbles in moments later rubbing her eyes. “Goddess! That’s a… it’s actually…” she can’t even finish.

“Get the fuck out of the CIC Liara! Go grab your things and get in your pod, now!” Shepard shouts in her face and shoves her towards the doorway. She grunts from the abrupt handling, but does as she is told and scurries out of sight.

Shepard turns towards the cockpit, “Time to prove your worth Joker and Nissus! Show me the best you’ve got!”

Shepard can tell they are not going to escape from this thing. It is too fast and its weaponry is too well-adjusted. Their craft is meant to be fast and stealthy; it does not do any good if they are in visual range.

But either way, the ship chasing them down – the reaper – seems to have some pretty insane technical capabilities. That would certainly make sense if the reapers bested the protheans. If circumstances were different she would love to study it to find out why it is so superior. She can easily understand why this enemy could have easily wiped out civilizations, especially in larger numbers.

When Garrus gives the order to abandon ship after their engines are knocked out. She reiterates it and begins to move through the ship to make sure no one is fucking about and disobeying the ultimatum. It is her responsibility to make sure everyone leaves the craft alive. The reaper will not be able to track their pods either, which are designed to jump as far away as possible as fast as possible.

Garrus stops her on her way out of the CIC and the entire world goes quiet when he wraps her into an embrace and presses his helm to hers. She can hear her heart beat pick up and the pressure on her mind from his. Despite the shielding separating her skin from his plates, she can still feel his warmth seep in through her skin. She closes her eyes and has hope for the future for several precious seconds, and she believes him when he says that they will make it out of this. They will have time. They will find a way to make this work. They separate and return to their duties.

Everyone has made it out so far with no casualties, which makes her quite content, so she loops back around to make sure her omni-tool is not lying to her about that unrealistic statistic. Further investigation reveals that it is true. She cannot find any evidence of death or grievous injury. Ironically the reaper could not have chosen worse time to attack them – the majority of the crew were already in their pods sleeping.

Their emergency state has redirected all power to shields but they too are about to completely fail. She encounters Garrus as he makes his way to his pod and gives him a nod. They are going to make it out of this, and they are going to have irrefutable evidence. She is going to have _him._

Unfortunate about the _Nocveus_ though.

The next model will have to learn from the mistakes of the current one. The beam cuts the ship in half behind her. Garrus’ comm links to hers and she can hear the worry in his subharmonics before he even speaks. But she talks to him – she says that she is at her pod as she palms the release latch. Her she is pulling herself through when she is wrenched away by a violent shake as the artificial gravity collapses and tosses her about.

Lia’s adrenaline and hardsuit functions kick in. She looks down and notices her legs are completely missing along with most of her lower body, yet she feels nothing anywhere. Her spinal nerve must have been severed at one of the cervical vertebrae, and the mass field generator on her suit must be holding in air pressure despite the… missing parts. But Garrus is still with her and she has very little time before her malfunctioning oxygen supply cuts out. After that she will use the emergency cryo tranquilizer to avoid having to experience all of the shock and asphyxiation process. She speaks very softly to use up as little oxygen as possible.

“I’ve got about 60 seconds Garrus, so I’m going to go all sappy and monologue on you. I’m lucky to have known you… you’ve given so much meaning to my life. I’m sorry I lost my way. I’m sorry I didn’t say something to you sooner. You might have figured it out but… I definitely love you. I love you, Garrus… and I will love you for the rest of my life,” thirty seconds from death and she makes a stupid joke. The brief moment of levity in the face of impending mortality is worth it, especially since she has the exquisite closure of knowing exactly how and when she is going to die.

“How long?” _have you felt it,_ he asks. She understands his subharmonics, for once. Lia remembers back to the melding process, when she asked that same question. She immediately knows the answer.

“As long as I can remember. So I hope you’ll convince them. I also hope you’ll find your way again. You know I miss hearing you play and sing. Inventing things with you. But… I’ll find my way back to you, Garrus, in one form or another. Promise… yourself that you’ll give her a chance when you find her. She’ll need you. _Saa viam k’tr v’kalinae aivo_ ,” she has to press out the final words because she is out of breath. She takes in one final gulp of oxygen, depleting her supply. The emergency cryogenic tranquilizer is the last mercy she is granted before it is over.


	20. Chapter 20

The drone runs a second time and returns a similar set of results, only with more detail about the material the monument is constructed from. It is definitely a coated metal of some kind, and it appears to be mostly solid on the inside if the scans are to be believed. At this point it almost seems as if their reality is being altered and they perceive the monument differently than their measuring equipment, or that attempting measurement is altering the state of the monument. This uncertainty only makes it more intriguing to Lanaai, who feels obligated to find out what this technology might be. She calls back to command with her findings and hopes that they might know of someone who can explain this to them.

They spend another two cycles at their outpost before she finally decides they should move in on foot. Their armor will be enough to shield the from the EM and ME fluctuations as they near the monument. She can tell the idea is not very popular with her team, especially Vakarian, but they are not going to uncover the mysteries of this structure without getting closer to it with more powerful scanning hardware.

_Onward,_ “We’re going to move in,” Lanaai commands. The rest of her team shift uneasily, but prepare their equipment without questioning her order.

_I go first,_ she halts her disciples and steps onto the dirt. She feels no different than before, and her armor does not throw any warnings, so she nods for them to follow. They haul the workstation behind them on a hover cart and make their way slowly towards the monument, which seems to become disproportionately larger with every step. Reassured by the steady heartbeat signal with the _Derilus,_ they pick up the pace.

They finally approach the monument, which towers above their heads, and begin to deploy the scanning equipment to obtain their first set of measurements. Lusan and Lanaai take off to check the base for any entrances that they could not spot from the drone’s camera footage.

_Not hopeful,_ “I don’t think we’ll find anything the drone couldn’t already spot,” Lusan keeps his eyes forward, vigilant.

_I agree,_ “I just want to double-check now that we’re much closer.”

The two of them walk in silence around the base of the tower, noting the subtle changes in the soil here. If they thought the dirt they just walked across was dry, then the it becomes even more so where the white alloy meets the ground. It looks granular and unstable, and she doubts that they would be safe walking on it without sinking. They have not even considered how far this this tower might extend into the ground. In fact, it could be an exposed piece of a much larger structure. They will have to return to the _Derilus_ after this and request reinforcements; their small team is woefully under-stocked to handle this.

They circle back to check on the rest of their team.

_Not much here,_ “Initial scans aren’t looking particularly interesting. ME and EM fluctuations are stronger up here, but we expected that,” Visai looks up from the screen on their workbench.

_We found nothing,_ “We didn’t find anything on our visual check,” Lanaai sighs.

_We return,_ “Leave the system here collecting readings,” she looks back towards their campsite, “We’ll leave a physical line on our way back and monitor remotely,” _no use staying,_ “I’ll give this place one more day before we return to the ship.”

_Wait,_ “Hold on, I see a spike here. That’s new. Wasn’t here a couple of seconds ago,” Riktel leans in and points to a suspicious-looking spike in the ME radiation spectrum.

Lanaai feels her heart start to hammer.

_Double time,_ “Alright. Leg-it back to the outpost. If this structure is gearing up for something I don’t want to be near it.”

_Affirmative,_ they chorus and take off. They barely make it five paces before the ground is ripped away from her feet and she is hoisted into the air like a leaf. She glances around and can spot Ameks and Vakarian way off in the distance, held aloft like she is. The monument seems to have them all separated by equal spacing around itself, about twenty meters in the air. Adrenaline courses through her system as she struggles against the localized mass field that holds her. Her armor’s mass field generator overloads and fails, leaving her stranded up here. The emergency arrestors are useless without power.

_Assistance! Danger!_ “ _Derilus!_ respond!”

“Yes Commander!” _we are ready,_ comes the reply. Lanaai sighs in relief that at least one lifeline is still functional.

_Send recovery,_ “We need a recovery unit send down here. We’re trapped in some kind of mass field anomaly. There may not be much time until-”

Silence.

Total silence, such that she cannot even hear her own voice or the blood rushing through her head. The ground returns to her feet and her vision melts and smears like wet marking paint. She looks around, confused, and attempts to determine where she is now, despite the silence that still blankets her ears. She can feel her mouth move and the air leave her lungs as she attempts to speak, but she cannot hear.

_Welcome._

Her head snaps up and her eyes widen at the intrusion of a voice that seems to come from inside her skull. It has some unidentifiable accent to it, and it reverberates as if they are in a cavernous hall.

You are here on our behalf. This time capsule was constructed to impart the knowledge of our descent into Armageddon in the hope that you will have the initiative and the resources to learn from our mistakes; to promote unity between species with your blank slate.

Lanaai still cannot speak, so she stops trying to open her mouth and focuses on remembering the words. She does not seem to have the rest of her body with her, so no omni-tool to record this experience.

From reading your neural map we understand that you have heard of the protheans.

Several thousand images flash before her, showing detailed scenes of protheans going about their daily routines, schematics of their starships, architecture; An entire history book is now present in her mind, and she has a splitting headache.

And we also understand that you have heard of the “reapers,” the legend of this cycle. But the reality of ourselves and our ancestors.

More images accompany the words, showing burning cities and unimaginable hellscapes under the feet of massive, lumbering anthropoids clad in black armor. She finds herself in the center of a battle, holding on to a fellow soldier’s failing body as abominations advance on them. She raises her weapon and grits her teeth against the face of death, but snaps back into the white halls of the monument.

The reapers will come back – as they always do – and the only way to stop them is… well we do not know if such a thing is possible. We have to assume that your circumstances are substantially different to ours, and that you still have time to make the necessary changes to face them and live.

The prothean empire, in its last dying breaths, constructed…

Some kind of vocalization like a huff cuts off the speech,

…Gods spare me. They did nothing of the sort! They asked **us** to construct **them** a weapon to stop the reapers in their tracks, while ignoring the warnings of the monuments and time capsules from past civilizations. **We** designed and built it alongside their most revered scientists… slave drivers. It worked. The masters believed themselves successful because the reapers were no longer actively hunting their people, and for several decades they rebuilt. They destroyed evidence from previous cycles, believing it to be pointless and insulting to their greatness.

It was so… **glorious!**

The voice spits the word with vitriol and sarcasm.

Their subjugation and tyranny knew no bounds. Their cultural arrogance and the pressure they exerted on their “inferiors” was worth the demise of all sapient life just to begin again. No sapient species should **ever** have to bow to another,

She can hear the accent deepen and the ire begin to rise.

And so we brought the reapers back. We used the weapon that **we** constructed, that our families bled and died for, to reverse the damage dealt to our hunters. Millions of reapers sprung to life and resumed their conquest. The protheans were caught off-guard and subsequently burned. Shortly thereafter, so were we… But we made peace with it. The protheans suffered and withered away. **Pathetically.**

It pauses as if waiting for her to ask a question, but continues after she says nothing. She cannot speak.

We knew it would kill us as well… we knew it would kill everyone… we “slaves” gathered in secrecy and decided that was the best course of action, so that was not “our mistake.” No, the mistake was our assumption that assisting the protheans in their war against the reapers would shift their views of us. Our mistake was believing that their promises to provide us with freedom following the war would be honored. For a specie that seemed so honor-bound, they were nothing more than petty liars. Power was their ultimate goal – and to what end?

Your cycle may have potential. Unity and cooperation is the key to defeating the reapers – not **during** the oncoming war, but **afterwards.** I cannot stress this enough to you, my child. How your cycle recovers will determine whether or not you survive. You may destroy the reapers as they stand, but your descendants may render this galaxy, this Eden, uninhabitable by resurrecting or recreating the reapers to fight their wars and clean up their mistakes… as did the Leviathan. Eden has enough to go around – do not let another specie take everything away from you under the guise of unity. Now go forth and proclaim it!

“-it attempts something…” _the pain!_ she finds herself on her back, struggling to breathe. She cranes her neck and gasps in a painful breath, to see that the monument has shattered. Several shards of the white cladding have made their way through her armor, which explains why breathing hurts. Her body is already cutting off the overloaded pain receptors and shutting down everything else in a last attempt to preserve what little life she has left.

_Respond!_ “Commander! We’re sending down evac!”

_Don’t,_ she barely breathes the command, but the comms officer does not hear her. She coughs and blood flies into her respirator. She strains and struggles to lift her arms and remove her helmet, and finds several seconds of solace when she finally breathes in fresh air. More blood flies from her mouth as she coughs again. Her lungs are not going to recover from this. She tries to look up to see if she can spot any of her teammates, but she can hardly see with the dust from what must have been quite an explosion.

She thinks about Delian and how much she realizes she misses him. She can hear her parents calling to her to join them. She rolls on to her side and coughs again while her suit makes a feeble attempt to heal her shrapnel wounds with medigel, and winds up filling her lungs with more liquid. She tracks the evac shuttle with her eyes as it descends to her location and hopes to the spirits that her teammates are going to live through this. She cannot look them in the eyes after promising to protect them and failing so spectacularly.

The last thing she can remember is being hauled aboard the evac shuttle by her crew. Another body – Lusan’s – is strapped onto a stretcher.

_Not him,_ she warbles.

_Send the other!_ the medic shouts into his mouthpiece, “Send down the second shuttle! We won’t be able to take the other four!”

_What? I’m so upset,_ she croaks.

_Stay with me,_ “keep your eyes on me, Commander,” the medic holds her gaze. Her vision fades and she takes a dive into the void.

_Wake up!_ “Lanaai,” _aiva! Spirits!_ she hears her name and bolts upright, panting. She looks around the dark sleeping pod and finds _him_ there with her. She stares at him, shocked and disturbed. This man now has a name, and she understands who he is as her memory explains it all to her. Who is she, really?

_What’s wrong?_ “Nightmares?” he leans forward and presses his crown into hers. Her mouth opens as her body seems to open up and draw in warmth from him. The sensation is always so surreal and profound that she is still not used to it, even after all this time. She simply nods in response to his question and weeps.

_I remember it all,_ “I know… I was there…” she gasps. Her mate keeps his forehead against hers.

_At your pace,_ “If you want to talk, you know I’m here to listen. You _know_ that. We both know what it’s like,” he purrs.

_A long night ahead, then,_ “I’ll start from the beginning,” _there were two,_ she is determined. She knows they have all the time in the universe now, but their children do not.

* * *

He knows what she is going to say it before she does, but hearing her say it makes it a infinitely worse. Garrus is practically crying when he asks “how long,” remembering the question she asked him in their brief shared vision, under T’soni’s guidance. She replies with his exact words, acknowledging that she was there with him.

He has never cried in his life, but now he weeps and keens to himself as she finishes talking with a gasp and says her final soul crushing words. It is a pledge, an idiom translated loosely as ’We go inseparably, bonded one." It is another serious declaration, not one he thought he would hear for a long time, not one he wanted to hear from anyone but her, and certainly not seconds before she cannot even make good on her promise.

He hears her gasp in a breath and then it is silent. Her vitals are still super red but she is still “alive”.

“Shepard!” He calls out to her but she does not reply.

“Lia!” he yells through his comm to her and there is still no response. Her vitals flatline and the indicator on his visor displays “KIA.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he hears her voice – or rather he remembers hearing it, even though she is gone. His mind is not in the right place to distinguish hallucinations from reality. He is stunned into utter numbness. He is stunned all the way up until his pickup twelve hours later. He just does not know how to process the events he has witnessed, but he knows what will happen to himself based on the last time.

He is so angry and so upset. His heart is still hammering up his throat as he recalls and relives her last words over and over. She fully acknowledged that she was not going to live through it. She had resigned to her own hopelessness. She _lost._

He can hardly move. It is like he is trapped there with her, like she still has hold on him and she is pulling him into the vacuum. Her scent becomes stronger now that she is nowhere near him. He had been so close to fixing both her and himself and making both of them happy. In a way, it is his fault she is dead. He could have dragged her into his pod with him and held her close – his to protect, and his ultimate failure. Marek would be so disappointed in him.

Some time passes between the attack and his next fully-constructed memories. Apparently they crammed him on board a turian quick-response rescue craft and had an exceedingly difficult time getting him to do anything. He had hardly been breathing and there were rivulets of blood bubbling at his nasal plates. Then he had literally done nothing for another four hours while they tried to figure out what was wrong with him. They said he was pseudo-catatonic, like some kind of primal response to extreme trauma.

But now he is back in the hell of life and he has to respond to people who need to know what happened. He tells them what happened, and he is furious. He is angry with himself for letting this happen to her – he promised Marek to keep her safe. It is also infuriating how little time he had with her… again.

He shuffles into a secured comms platform to talk with some Special Forces operative about what he experienced. He is so angry. He spits almost every word. They better believe they have a major threat on their hands or he will just murder everyone himself. Shepard is dead at the hands of the reapers and he will not accept anyone’s denial of their existence at this point. Luckily for him (and his audience), the agent on the other end listens to his entire rant without objection or skepticism.

He is then given an invite to discuss further once command has drawn together some rough logistics and formally reviewed his evidence. Finally, he is shown to his temporary nesting pod and left there, alone. He does not wonder how his squad is doing, he does not wonder when he is going to have his next meal, spar, or rut. He does not think about organizing a vigil for his love. The only thing that occupies his entire mental space are Shepard’s dying words.

He will allow himself to grieve and then he will move on, but he has earned the right to be upset about this. He is the one who began with Shepard; no one else ever knew her like he did. So much of his life is informed by her existence in it. Even when she left he knew he was going to see her again one day.

What could she have accomplished, he wonders, if she had not strayed from her path? If she had not tried to follow him? If he had not pulled her away? And what could she have accomplished if he only taken initiative and _helped her live?_ But the impossible amount of work she did all damn day gave them so much more time. They know a lot about what they are up against already. The truth is, however, that they are lost without her. And so is he. But, he _cannot_ let her death be in vain.

His squad finds him the next day, starting with Lo’kian.

“Garrus?” _brother,_ the colossal figure begins softly. Garrus looks up at the intruder and hears the disturbed-sounding _spirits._ The rest of his squad files in slowly except Nissus. He surveys his acolytes from his shell, too exhausted to be alive right now. He plants his face into his palms and keens.

They share in the grief. Shepard reached them and changed them in one way or another. They hold a vigil in silence.

Nissus brings Moreau with her. His eyes are red and it is obvious he has been crying. Garrus feels mollified by the idea that the grief is universal, because it is the only appropriate response to mourn what they have lost. He suddenly envies the way that humans can so visibly express anguish and allow others to know it. He wants the galaxy to _know_ how devastated he is just by looking at him. They say nothing because there are no words that can properly address the situation. His subharmonics thank them for the support.

By the end of the cycle, after being cleared without injuries, Garrus moves back into what remains of his routine. He has a galactic threat to deal with and they still have no idea when the reapers will make their return. He contacts T’soni and finds that she has been picked up with the human crew and that she is currently on her way to the Citadel. She is equally distraught about the loss of Shepard.

Garrus heads for Palaven where he expects them to listen to him. Special Forces has already placed him and his squad on a new craft, and they have yet to disclose anything about the new mission. The more it takes his mind off Lia, the better.

No one else has confirmed Lia’s death or even located her corpse, but he knows she is gone. It still stings when the Hierarchy officially announces her death, and he keens again. They say her remains were incinerated by the radiation of the nearby star before she could be fully recovered.

That is a lie.

Her telemetry when she had… died… indicated that the radiation from the star was not strong-enough to burn through her armor in that time period. Also she had not been close-enough to the star to drift within any kind of damaging radiation field. Their velocity at the time put her in an escape trajectory from the solar system that he will always think of as her tomb. It sounds like a cover-up, but he is too upset to rabble-rouse and press for information. Either way, lying about her death will not bring her back.

But his telemetry had cut off just seconds after her comm system lost power so he lacks any revealing details. It is possible that the enemy ship had come back and vaporized her remains. It is possible that the eezo core destabilized and left nothing behind. Any number of things are possible in a reality where the entire body of sentient civilization is under the threat of extinction from millions of mythical crustaceous organo-robots.

For the next week he expects to see her wandering about the ship. He expects to hear her voice or smell her scent. He expects her to find her way back to him, in one form or another. And yet…

The Alliance’s PR stunt of a funeral is infuriating. He cannot attend because he cannot make it to Earth in time, but it hardly matters anyway because he was not invited in the first place. The lack of an invitation gave it away as bullshit instantly: any kind of investigation would reveal her ties to his family and himself. She explicitly gave him power of attorney over her accounts and wrote his name all over her end-of-life plans. It is a literal crime that the Alliance did not contact him for arrangements of a funeral service or a vigil.

Garrus cannot even begin to imagine what her mother must be thinking – Jess’ mate, or Garrus’ second father, gone early, and now her daughter gone just as early. Hopefully his parents are there to help her through it if they still see each other.

He does not understand why the Alliance is doing what they are doing. They have consistently pushed her under wraps and virtually denied her existence entirely. Suddenly showing her off as a hero of the Alliance is uncalled for. Also the _Nocveus_ was not exactly public material. It seems like the Alliance is trying to spin up their war machine and use her as free PR to gather recruits.

He receives a message from Williams trashing the memorial. According to her, Alenko is also angry about it. Even Anderson is angry about it. In the “service” the Alliance mentions absolutely nothing about her past that made her unique. In fact they mention almost nothing about her at all.

They may as well have been giving anyone else a funeral service. It is so rife with propaganda that it is painfully obvious that they have a political agenda. And to see Shepard’s death used that way makes him want to burn them all. Let the reapers come, for all he cares, _this galaxy is not worthy._

A few days later he receives some information he is not expecting nor ever would think to expect. His family’s estate lawyer sends him some documents containing Lia’s various financial statements and holding information. He receives one and half million credits – the total sum of her earnings throughout her tour in the Alliance, as well as investment assets in companies that have done exceedingly well. Hidden accounts, “life insurance” as the Alliance calls it, inheritance. It is an insane amount of money considering she was only twenty five.

He reads the note attached to the confidential document:

The Alliance paid me a lot of money to shut up. I find that reprehensible, but there was nothing I could do about it. I’d given up attempting to make things right because they were so bent on making things wrong. If I don’t live long-enough to update this information it means something ridiculous happened, and I bet you the Alliance will either say nothing, or they will do something equally ridiculous… so I bet you all of this money that it’s something ridiculous.

Really, though, I want you to keep this for a rainy day. There is enough here to build you a house to keep the rain off your handsome, intelligent self, and still have some room left over for your ego. Just kidding. If you ever run into hard times… this is just backup. Or, you know, when you have a family to support and you need to pull through… if you need a break from work to see your mate or your children.

I probably died without telling you I loved you, Garrus, because I’m a spineless, milquetoast loser.

As if giving you money or typing you a stupid little message counts. Can you see me rolling my eyes?

I really did love you – I do. I will, always… in my “I refuse to say anything about it” kind of way. I want you to be happy. I want you to find your way. I want you to find someone who makes you happy.

It is another blow to his conscious and his emotional state. It feels like even more of a weight and a reminder of his failure to protect her. The overhead of possessing that much wealth is a perfect representation of how much potential is lost forever.

He has a task. Perhaps now is not the time, but at least the closure will be welcomed. He digs around in his files for the “Marek” folder and decrypts the file using the password: _2175-05-36:UBT_. The file opens and he sees exactly what Marek described its contents to be. This is truly bizarre, but he does not question why it must be done – he only knows that he needs to do it.

He eyes the code word, or rather code-phrase: _collapsible-Conscious_. He considers it for a moment and wonders what this has to do with the Shepard family. Garrus supposes that, given Marek’s lifelong occupation, that he may have led some strangely-named projects and made some powerful acquaintances that he never talked about. He presses onward through this ritual and prepares to send a message to the specified omni-id, which does not even look valid to him.

Garrus does not expect to receive a reply after he sends his simple greeting. But when he does, and it comes back with an exact match to the code-phrase in the encrypted file, his heart begins to hammer. It feels like he is communicating with the dead right now. Garrus never once questioned who Marek was, but now he has to. Who was this man who could provision such an odd and mysterious plan during his lifetime and then expect it to remain active after his death? What in spirits’ name is contained within the file he is now to send?

He sends the file to the second omni-id specified next to the code word, and receives a chilling _Thank you, Garrus_ once the file transfer completes. The blood drains from his face. What the hell is going on right now? Garrus types out a quick question.

_Who?_

Not only is there no reply, but the message simply does not send as if the receiver does not exist. He tries the first id and the same occurs. He goes to sleep incredibly paranoid. He wakes up paranoid. He spends the next several weeks living in a state of trauma, paranoia, and depression.


	21. Chapter 21

Their craft has been trailing the _Nocveus_ for some time, quietly. Captain Kritus Vakarian presides over her “unnamed” sister ship. They call her _Iko_ as a nickname – the sister spirit of _Nocveus_ – but officially they are without a designation. So they know about the sphere station – they just do not know what the other crew has discovered about it or what their business there was. Kritus’ crew, all of whom he hand-selected to accompany him and knows personally, know next to nothing about the sphere station other than its location. For security reasons he intends to keep it that way. He trusts that his nephew will bring this information to whoever needs to see it and no one else. So far they have not told anyone else about the station for fear that it would lead to unnecessary conflict of interest.

Like the _Nocveus_ and several other covert craft, they have been ordered to investigate these disappearing colonies, but their primary objective is to keep tabs on their sister ship in case anything goes awry.

They were not too far behind when the _Nocveus_ reported an alarm status and issued an emergency pickup. Unfortunately, the attacker made such short work of the _Nocveus,_ that they could not catch up in time. They do not have access to the _Nocveus’_ sensors, but she is automatically programmed to broadcast telemetry in the moments before she goes critical. The craft reports one casualty from whatever the hell happened to it: Commander Shepard of the Alliance Special Forces is listed KIA. This does not bode well.

She has a bit of a reputation with turian Blackwatch even if no else one really knows who she is. The Alliance has continuously denied that she exists and silently takes down most evidence that she exists because she is a bit “blunt” and “forward” and has a history of being a little bit “forceful.” A perfect turian. They will need to recover her body and bring her back for a proper service – return her to her people on Bridge. He would rather die than allow the Alliance to smear propaganda across the image of a brilliant warrior of the Hierarchy and a friend to his family.

The wreckage site is a quite elaborate metal nightmare, and they remain extremely vigilant in case their attacker circles back. Despite traveling at several thousand kilometers per second away from the local star, it appears entirely still as they approach it. The attacker that did this to them seems to have a special kind of hatred for the ship, having shredded it to bits rather than disabling it and bolting. They move in and begin the search for Shepard’s body, sending in additional recovery teams to gather black boxes and left-over data.

They get a signal on the radar: another craft is deliberately approaching. Vakarian puts his ship on weapons free. The only reason why anyone else would be here is if they had the same intentions as he does. He doubts another Blackwatch craft would just be wandering through, so it could be an Alliance craft that slipped under their sensors. At any rate, he does not expect this will end well. They still have not found Shepard’s body, but he withdraws his teams so they do not get ambushed down there.

Upon spotting the offending craft, his info specialist immediately advises to engage on sight. The other craft belongs to a human supremacist organization named “Cerberus,” a not-so-secret subsidiary of Atlas used when the massive conglomerate wishes to jerk around its opponents without asking the Alliance to do so. Vakarian remembers them well. His nephew made waves with Blackwatch Command when his team exfiltrated one of the most intelligent and dangerous turian Blackwatch scientists in modernity. She presented them with a treasure trove of information regarding the cell and who they need to target to take it down.

And yet, after several years, Blackwatch have only assassinated one of the five heads of Cerberus; an impressive feat considering what Blackwatch is capable of, but even more impressive that Cerberus has held out this long. The high cost of pursuing this cell forced the Primarch to terminate any active Blackwatch contracts and call in Aegis to handle it. He is aware that another head was promptly removed following that change, and they have identified two of the three remainders.

Cerberus is difficult to gather information about because they are very careful and their benefactors are unspeakably wealthy. Kel Litha had been very taken with the competence shown by his nephew’s team. She also had a lot of data to present about Cerberus from her time there. The bottom line is that he will not feel guilty or remorseful about vaporizing this Cerberus vessel. He does not why they are here or who sent them, but he does not care.

He watches the opposing vessel come to a halt and then orders his weapons team to dump as much payload as possible onto the other craft. Vakarian does not know what kind of freaky illegal experimental tech they might be flying with, so he does not want to give them any chance to respond. They target the engines and the middle of the craft where they assume her eezo core is located. Unlike the _Nocveus_ , Vakarian’s ship is crammed full of weapons at the expense of sheer speed. They were never intended to move as quickly as the _Nocveus_.

The first volley of fire from their own freaky, illegal, Avexus-effect mass drivers obliterates the shields on the Cerberus craft. They are immediately met with a response of swarm-missiles which thicken up and dart towards them.

He knows his shields are not going to cut it against that entire barrage, and it is very likely that his point defense cannot thin them out enough. He also knows they will not all fly in a straight line – those missiles are specifically designed to loop around and ruin the back of their ship. It is a good tactic, and most captains do not know about it before they have it beaten into them in simulations. But his pilot is ultimately in control of the craft now, and she is best in the galaxy.

He orders a direct charge forwards and his pilot takes care of the rest. Most of those missiles cannot change direction quickly enough and swing wide. Their shields go critical as they plow through a few oncoming and leave the rest to fly behind them and loop back around.

A second volley from his craft blasts through Cerberus’ hull leaving them at the feet of death. They cannot maneuver anymore, so Vakarian uses the enemy ship as a shield against its own swarm. He knows the missiles from before are not going to let up so they keep moving, placing the now-defunct craft between themselves and the pursuing missiles. He does not let up and has a third volley blasted into Cerberus’ mass core.

Escape pods leave the Cerberus craft yet Vakarian has no choice but to let them leave as he has his people devote their full efforts to staving off the remaining swarm. They need to survive if they plan on recovering Shepard’s body. He guesses that someone aboard his nephew’s craft was _siel decurrs_ – and that they are _still alive_ because everyone except Shepard left the craft without fatal injuries. He growls. _Unfair._

Some of Cerberus’ pods are destroyed by the missiles, not because the missiles explode, but simply due to collisions. Most of the swarm slam into the hull of the now defunct Cerberus frigate and disarm themselves or explode. _Iko’s_ point defense fends off the rest and their shields withstand any stragglers. He finally eases back into his seat now that the immediate threat is gone, but they remain in a state of high-alert in case more of them arrive. He thanks his pilot for her spectacular work.

Ship to ship combat is much more dangerous and brief than media ever truly understands. People seem to think it drags out and there is some chance to fight back. When both craft are technically unconstrained by what is considered legal, the only thing that matters is timing; the first shot decides the victor and the skill of the pilot determines how well they recover.

They resume searching for the body, which at this point he _must_ find. Nearly having their ship wasted by an illegal swarming device makes Shepard’s body several orders of magnitude more valuable that it already is. If Cerberus wants it that desperately, then it is worth the risk to know why, and it is even more important to keep it away from them.

The core in the Cerberus ship has a couple of hours before it destabilizes and obliterates everything within a few thousand kilometers, putting them under time pressure. They find her an hour later… and she is not exactly in the best condition. There is zero chance she is medically salvageable, and a traditional clear-case orbital cremation will be forbidden as it would be too obscene. They cannot find the other half of her and they are running out of time, so they leave with what they have.

He informs Command that he has her body and that they are on their way to rendezvous and await further correspondence with the Alliance. They prepare her battered and charred upper half to be placed in a cryogenic immersion pod after verifying that it is indeed Shepard’s. The medics do their best to divest her of the roasted armor, but most of the plating is melted to her skin and, in some locations, her bones. But her helmet comes off easily, revealing the beautiful young woman beneath. Her face is serene and free of all tension, as if she is only asleep. The color in her skin is still present; the longer he stares the more he expects her to wake up at any moment.

She was not meant to have her life stolen from her.

Vakarian is surprised when the order comes back to return her body to secure storage on Palaven until further deliberation. Her end-of-life documents are full of ultimatums and requests that directly oppose standard Alliance procedure, and honoring the wishes of the dead is taken incredibly seriously by the Hierarchy. Unfortunately, so is honoring military procedure. What would ordinarily be a simple process is now made incredibly complex by conflicting interests and litigation. His nephew’s name appears in nearly every section; she placed her spirit in the hands of his family which makes her wishes personal to him. He will be damned if he lets the Alliance disrespect her so profoundly.

Several cycles later, he watches in total disgust as they do exactly that.

* * *

Kel Litha hears the news of Shepard’s death from her mate when she wakes up in the morning. She is not too enthused by the idea of that; Shepard came across as the Alliance’s proverbial redemption, and now they have lost their last chance. Litha _despises_ the Alliance and by extension most of humanity. In fact, she hates just about everyone. But the Alliance in particular bothers her to no end by placing egotistical, bloodthirsty, and incompetent individuals in places of power and by feeding its warriors and civilians lies about the galaxy at large.

Their goal has always been to encroach and threaten, with three separate navies ruled by three massive, “multi-national” conglomerates with monopolies on all of their homeworld’s resources. The loudest idiots shout the worst possible orders to their equally stupid subordinates while the value of Earth’s inspired individuals is quickly consumed by the insane extortion enforced by the ruling conglomerates. A truly exquisite kakistocracy.

The very few who demonstrate intelligence, like Shepard and the people she surrounded herself with, are quickly put away to do something else. Humanity is a divided species because of this mentality, and nothing will ever cause them to move past it. Not that she delights in the idea of it, but it would be so easy to lay waste to their entire species – humanity would easily contribute to half of its own downfall… like the krogan.

Shepard defied her fragile form. This was a woman who possessed vision and drive from a young age, and broke ground with experimental training. She developed a reputation that she had been completely unaware of with turian Special Forces, Blackwatch, and the Cobalt Guard, who monitored her progress through higher-level training and official deployment. Litha remembers this woman as an absolute force of nature.

And now, she is KIA. Not only is she KIA, but the trailing turian sister craft to the _Nocveus_ apparently had a visitor crewed by none other than Cerberus, her old “friends.” It means nothing good that Cerberus was there so quickly to investigate the mess. The story would have been significantly different had an Alliance craft arrived in their stead, but the Captain of _Nocveus’_ sister acted correctly.

Litha already knows that Atlas puppeteers both the Alliance and Cerberus, but until now she doubted that the two were linked internally. This encounter seems to prove the converse. Why else would they have known so quickly? It is likely one of the crew members was feeding information to the Cerberus chain of command, or perhaps it was one of Shepard’s direct superiors at Alliance command.

Next she learns that the crew of _Iko_ has successfully recovered Shepard’s battered remains, which they have locked down in cryogenic storage. They are holding her while the Hierarchy figures out what should be done with it. At the very least it seems that the Hierarchy has her best interests in mind and will honor her passing by honoring her end-of-life ultimatums. Humanity does not entirely deserve Shepard.

Litha has this fleeting thought as she downs the last of her morning Taetran laced with antidepressants:

_She would have been a great turian._

Litha moves on with her life, and sends the tragedy of the _Nocveus_ to the back of her mind.

She begins thinking about it several periods later when another report of a Cerberus raid on a Blackwatch research outpost crosses her desk on its way to Director Vorik. The loss of Shepard comes back to her at this time, and her mind begins to wander off into its own confines. She reminisces on the works of Shepard’s mother, Jessica, whose dedication to prosthetics and neurology broke ground several decades ago. It is the reason why Litha’s team has been able to make such advancements in prosthetic fidelity, and even superiority, recently.

However, Litha does what Jess Shepard’s people are afraid to. The turian prosthetics rolling out this year will be arguably the best in production as a result of the silent sacrifices of her own volunteers and test contracts. Litha is also familiar with Jess Shepard’s less-known works and “unreleased” works. Those are the ones Litha has developed into a better understanding of how consciousness functions, and how to build maps of memories by using existing, well-known and proven scanning methods.

Litha also has the unique experience of forging life out of death.

The Seliron Contract was a resounding success, and everything she learned could be applied again. She wants to know if the knowledge they possess can be applied to another case, not to mention what it would teach them about sapience and consciousness.

She thinks for a moment before contacting Director Vorik.

“Bring me her body,” _I ask kindly now…_ but it is an order, not a suggestion.

His reply takes a moment, but he responds, understanding that she will not ask twice.

 _We will talk,_ “Yes ma’am.”

* * *

Special Forces command has a long talk about how to handle Shepard’s remains outside of the existing laws and processes that would ordinarily govern them. There are maybe ten turians involved, and their group is so well-protected that even the Primarch does not have direct access to proceedings or the ability to intervene. They are their own entity within the Hierarchy that no one on the outside truly knows the mechanics of.

They discuss the implications of her death and what it means for the growing pile of solid evidence on what seemed at first to be nothing but nonsense.

In the cycles following, they obtain a plethora of information from Commander Garrus Vakarian about his mission abroad in that chaotic stretch of the void. He presents information about a galactic-class threat, bringing a well-known legend into reality, and his evidence is irrefutable. They will need to begin to mobilize a war effort now, even if they cannot tell anyone about it. They cannot even fathom convincing other races that this threat is real, even _with_ evidence. They might not even be able to convince the Primarch, but the Vakarian and Victus clans have history.

They know that if they return Shepard’s remains to the Alliance she will be completely erased from existence. After speaking about it at length and arriving nowhere, Lasandran Vorik, Litha’s supervisor, says the most insane thing any one of them has heard thus far:

“What if we bring her back?” _open minds, stay with me_ , Director Vorik posits it as a hypothetical scenario to consider. What would they do if such a thing were possible? Then he talks them through another scenario, because the more they discuss hypotheticals the more ridiculous it gets.

“What if we bring her back… in the form she sought? Without the shell that trapped her? …What if we bring her back as a turian?” _consider, as if it were possible_.

The types of people in Blackwatch central ring are those who have always been cast-out from society due to their inabilities to cope with incompetence in leadership. They make considerations based on evidence, despite what their superiors tell them. They dream of impossibilities. They postulate and strive for the nonexistent. They disobey reality. Special Forces finds these people and whisks them away to be given the resources and power to accomplish true greatness at the cost of having an ordinary life. These turians are here because they are all capable of thinking about the proposal objectively and seriously, despite how unlikely it sounds… at first.

 _My spirit-walker,_ “My colleague, Kel Litha, as you may know, is capable of such a feat after succeeding brilliantly under the Seliron Contract. Not only could she bring back Commander Shepard in a capable turian form, but she can engineer the most perfect turian the galaxy has ever seen. We may face the end of some our worst afflictions: Corpalis, Korvan’s, Ceverellum…” _truly, we will,_ “not to mention, that according to Commander Vakarian, Shepard is necessary for the survival of our galaxy,” _the evidence speaks for itself._

From Commander Vakarian they know that Shepard was literally an invaluable component of their knowledge about the enemy and how to overcome it. It would seem that having access to Shepard’s brain, a blank check, and the most dangerous turians under their watchful eye might yield some valuable results.

These turians talk about it… and the more they talk about it the better of an idea it seems. In addition to the obvious medical advancements attainable through this endeavor, having Shepard under their jurisdiction would give them complete access to her knowledge of Alliance secrets and ultimate control over this super-weapon reported by Vakarian’s team. It would also allow them to employ her as a Special Forces asset and give her full control over Blackwatch or Cobalt Guard resources. The turians could have two powerful resources at their command: the sphere station and Shepard herself; the beast and her handler respectively.

It makes the impossible feat of bringing her back seem worth it. It is a power play to bring themselves some measure of security and everyone has problems.

The Hierarchy and the Asari Republic are always very close to war because asari commandos and hit squads seem to turn up quite frequently to assassinate political figures who speak out against the council, both turian and asari. The Republic is aware of the untapped power that the turians keep quietly maintained despite this long period of peace, so it almost always plays dirty and sabotages turian political campaigns to make sure sympathetic individuals are elected. They are also known to keep information hostage: information like whatever is happening with the reapers right now.

The Alliance, a glorified PMC for the Atlas conglomerate, constantly badgers the Hierarchy for compensation over the First Contact conflict, and prods their patience with occasional attempts on colonies. The turians have never forgiven the Alliance for the bombing of Aegis and know that the Alliance still keeps their eyes trained on it. Since the initial attack, Aegis have run covert operations against the Atlas conglomerate to great effect, and the Hierarchy will continue to let them do so. The token efforts of the Bridge project mean very little to the Alliance, who are simply stalling until they can exploit a weakness and continue to be the “galaxy’s new krogan.”

The Salarian Allied Systems have a very secretive alliance with the krogan through splinter cells and research teams. They want to hold the cure for the genophage, which the Hierarchy assumes they have, above the krogans’ heads like a treat on a line and use the krogan as a bargaining chip.

_Everyone has problems._

They already know Shepard was not a fan of her people. They will not have to try very hard to convince her to work with them against the reapers now, and then against the Alliance later if needed. She will do anything and she will do it perfectly in exchange for validation in the eyes of others.

There is always a brief moment before finalizing these kinds of decisions where everyone sobers up and considers whether or not it is _right_. But they have colonies disappearing and the threat of something they do not even fully understand looming over their heads. They will allow the ends to justify the means for now. It has worked to varying degrees of success before, and right now they have nothing to lose. Their trust is properly placed with Vorik, Litha, and their team, and it is in their best interests to fund the project.

So the sobriety fizzles out once more and they begin to organize the logistics of funding an impossible task and collecting the brightest turians then can get their hands on to work with Litha. Publicly, they announce the death of Shepard – that she burned up in the radiation of the local star, which is quite plausible. Commander Vakarian might not buy it, but they have him under their command so he is not free to ask questions. The news goes crazy about it for about four days, the Alliance puts on a farcical funeral service which insults everything that Shepard stood for, and then everyone forgets about her and moves on… just like that.

* * *

Garrus does not hear from the Alliance, but his discreet correspondence with Williams and Alenko reveal that the Alliance has merely acknowledged the “potential” of their evidence. Garrus cannot get any angrier than he already is at this point, so it just opens another festering wound. What more could the Alliance possibly need? What more could anyone need to understand what is currently happening, and what will happen if they do nothing? Garrus sees it, he sees the fire with greater clarity every time he tries to catch some sleep.

He stops hearing from any of his human crew at all shortly thereafter. They have probably been absorbed into some secretive operations group the Alliance refuses to talk about.

The few individuals in the Hierarchy’s Special Forces who know about this are not afraid to admit that they believe him. Shepard’s endless supply of comprehensive reports on their findings make it impossible to refute the evidence. However, Special Forces refuses to take this issue to the Primarch. Instead, they open up several projects and request funding: they are going to start developing military hardware and scaling up fleet production.

Garrus is somewhat mollified by the notion that in a couple years they will be at full-force production, having doubled the size of the current operating fleet, but they have to start out slow and they have to spin a proper lie. The rest of galactic society is too fragile to believe that something like the reapers could exist, even with “comparable” events in their history.

Special Forces Command alleges that they have sent out a number of covert Blackwatch units to take a look at these disappearing colonies. Now they know what to look out for, they may have a better chance of catching that mysterious ship. Garrus warns them of its unnatural firepower and maneuverability, hell, he shows them because he has blackbox telemetry from the _Nocveus’_ final moments. “Aegis” is brought up again and despite his questions he receives no answers.

They grant him some time off while command works out the logistics of his new role. He is also granted a number of tier raises which ultimately mean very little to him. He is still designated as a Commander of the Hierarchy, but his augmented tier gives him access to more resources, exemptions, and information. Essentially there is a point where the so-called “honor” and “obedience” of the Hierarchy collapses and becomes an individualistically-driven cluster of underground agents and operations. He has arrived. He wants to keen as he reads the lifeless message that informs him of his change of class.

He can bid the prospect of a normal life goodbye, but he cannot do the same to his own family. He is now formally an ω.

And he still has that video file sitting on his visor just taunting him – waiting for him to watch it: the recording of what Lia said to him while he was comatose. Whatever he sees in there will make things worse, but he knows he cannot avoid it forever.

He just does not want anyone to come near him or touch him. He is gaining more of a resistance to his needs so he can oblige his own desire for solitude. A steady supply of suppressants will hold him off for another week before he has to take care of the problem. He will not allow himself to grieve into a pit of despair for her, no matter how much he would like to. Shepard would not have wanted him to dwell on her and make her the source of his inability to perform at his best; but then again, he cannot extract thoughts from the mind of a woman who no longer exists, and a woman who still whispers to him in his dreams.

In the weeks before his next assignment, he visits a scribe to have another chapter added to his _seravim._ He composes a lengthy eulogy and a heartbroken plea, both of which are permanently etched into the pliable epidermal layer under the enamel coating. He does not refer to her as his mate, but the language used in these chapters connote such a thing. Afterwards, while his plates are still stinging as they heal, he travels about Palaven just for something to do. He has never seen much of this planet even though he was born here and lived here for three years before they moved to Bridge. He does not remember anything about it, but forming new memories now should help take his mind off _her_.

He thinks about his family. Someday, if Special Forces finally gives him up, he will speak with them.

He visits several natural wonders of Palaven, capitalizing on the useless pension the Hierarchy has loaded into his accounts and doing his best to take advantage of the exercise and fresh air. Lia hated traveling and he still does, but he does not understand what else he should be doing. Having time away from people exaggerates just how far he has veered off his intended path. He hardly knows where to go. There used to be a time when Garrus had things to work on whenever there was a free moment, but now it seems all he knows how to do is wait for the next assignment.

* * *

Director Lasandran Vorik’s research cell could be considered an analog to Cerberus, but they like to believe that they hold themselves to far higher standards. Cerberus’ goal is to subjugate and torment; his is simply to safeguard his people. They also do not round up their own colonists like livestock so they can just test any old concoction or procedure. They do not invent monsters and drop them into unsuspecting distant colonies just to see what happens.

Vorik is an old man and he has witnessed what the tides of progress are capable of. He understands the _risk_ involved with progress but he also understands that a lack of ethics leads nowhere. Litha is a bit more open, “sadistic” as most would say, so he has to reign her in. Though, once she bonded after “completing” the Seliron Contract, she became far more restrained. Her focus does not make her any less intelligent or driven. She views all research materials the same entity, even if that research material is a living, dreaming, considerate being. She just happens to treat her live subjects with greater care because they are always worth more than her machines and chemicals.

He quickly brings a recent colleague and “friend” onboard, Polarus Ki’Senthamus, one of the masterminds behind the _Nocveus_ and her sister, as well as her long line of equally powerful mothers, all of which never reached the public. Ki’Senthamus was damned to be an ω since birth thanks to his parents and their contacts. Ki’Senthamus was a colony kid who was taken to to study on Palaven once Command found out about his existence. His parents had attempted to keep him secret. He was mentored from an early age by none other than Palvea Avexus, who made breakthroughs in mass effect field mathematics and theoretical physics. Her work blessed them with the fastest ships in the galaxy (at the time) with some of the most powerful weaponry as well.

He is an intense individual: introverted and antisocial, blunt, stoic. He sees the individual parts and how they work before the whole device. He is jaded and generally unpleasant to have casual conversation with. He is a young, beautiful φ, and well-trained as an operator during his short “academy” “tour.” Vorik plucked him out of his plummeting Blackwatch field career and placed him on the _Nocveus_ project. He is alone and he may always be alone despite his popularity as a rutting partner. He is perfect for this project.

Two weeks after they lost the _Nocveus,_ his team finally has Shepard’s charred upper half in their possession. Litha seems happy that her subject’s brain is still completely intact and perfectly preserved by whatever cryogenic tranquilizer she received moments before expiration. Her brain is the only thing that matters because it is their central focus for this project.

And, if they understand correctly, Shepard obtained some very expensive gene mods shortly before she died, one of which Litha developed. She is happy to see that the effects were profound. When Litha opens up Shepard’s skull to take a look at the state of her brain, it has become many times more dense than normal for a human. Once the “heart” (or literally, the brain) of their project is properly stationed in a preservation tank, they discard her body.

Litha is absolutely ecstatic. Conditions could hardly be more optimal. Vorik can see she has already lost sight of their objective and she has wrapped herself completely into her own mode of focus. It is the phenomenon that makes her a threat to society but uncompromising in productivity. It took Seliron to remind her not to descend past a certain point; to remember that people are not machines.

Vorik begins looking for other turians who are crazy-enough to agree to join this project. Their team is provided with a remote base of operation on an obscure garden planet, and they receive the codename _Alpheos,_ the spirit of fire and rebirth. They will be the first, and probably only research team to bring back someone from the dead in a completely scratch-built body _from another specie._ And Vorik knows, realistically, this will be the last time they ever do so. It will not exactly be cheap and efficient, however this one instance will be well worth the cost.


	22. Chapter 22

Within a period, Garrus is given a new ship and a new crew. His squad is back with him once again and he quickly adjusts to the different landscape, even though it is odd to be on a ship where he does not see humans fifty percent of the time. Her name is _Ketos_ , which is type of coastal airborne predator native to the Likrin archipelago on Palaven, known for its overtly aggressive nature. She is nowhere near as pleasant as the _Nocveus_ – she does not have the same instant familiarity that he and Lia’s craft had, but she is very modern, having just recently rolled off the production line.

The truly-turian design of everything reminds him of just how much his upbringing around humans has impacted his expectations of what should be considered aesthetically and ergonomically acceptable. This new ship is slightly larger, supposedly just as fast, and this time armed to the fringes with state-of-the-art weaponry. Most of her arsenal is illegal and violates a number of arms treaties the turians have signed over the years with various governments, but it will not matter as long as they keep quiet.

He sets a course of the Citadel where they will pick up T’soni. He needs her optimism and her particular skill set in order to do his job effectively. He briefly wonders if it is possible that she retained some of Shepard’s memories when they melded and if he could, perhaps, use her to get them. But he knows that is an abuse of T’soni and Shepard’s privacy.

He finds her – he hardly even has to look. She wants to get back to this hunt as much as he does. T’soni is rather cold when they meet up having clearly lost her pretense of innocence over the incident. She hardly talks to him or anyone else once she is situated in one of their diplomatic suites.

In their very brief conversations, T’soni reveals illicit information about how the Alliance is dealing with Alenko and William’s presentations, all of which seems bleak. All of _Nocveus’_ human crew have been moved into other missions and she has been unable to reach any of them. T’soni suggests that their former crew might also be on a wild goose chase just like he is. Garrus quips and snarks, but ultimately acknowledges the truth behind her worry. He orders the ship to be stocked with the proper amenities for her before casting off.

Time passes him by as he keeps in shape and he keeps looking forward, but not a single day passes where does not think about Lia. The pressure to watch that video file keeps mounting, but he cannot allow it to distract him, not when he has just about reached a stable point with himself. Granted, it is lower than it used to be, but it will do.

They set a course for the sphere station: the worst place in the universe at this point, in his opinion. He is not done looking for a way to activate it, and if that reaper followed them it may have gone back to the station. It is the only thing he can think to do – it is the only lead they have right now.

His ship, the _Ketos,_ is a highly-guarded Hierarchy secret. T’soni’s presence aboard it is his own highly-guarded secret from Special Forces command. Still, that does not mean Liara ever has to find out about just how illegal the existence of this craft actually is.

They have full Lykroa cloak, stolen straight from the salarians. It means the ship can cast a field around itself which allows all intersecting fields to pass straight through. All forms of EM radiation are completely unaffected by the presence of the craft, including the visible spectrum. No detection system in existence would ever be able locate them. The only caveat is that they cannot use their engines to move because they would create a readable energy signature and collapse the field. They also have to turn off their artificial gravity because the mass field required to sustain it would read. So it is good for observation only.

When they arrive at the sphere station Garrus has them pull in and then engage the cloak. His crew have been briefed on this procedure and wear magboots so they do not have to float around.

And there is that _damned reaper._

He recognizes it. It takes all of his restraint to not just order weapons free and blast it to pieces. That ship definitely has some impossibly-strong countermeasures, just as it had impossibly-powerful weapons and impossibly-flexible maneuverability for its size.

_Demon, bastard, scum._

He is growling, though. He did not expect to find anything here at all, yet here is his enemy taunting him with its presence. It is probably bait, and that reaper knows he will come back for revenge and that he will be sloppy about it. It has nothing better do with its time so it can afford to just sit here and wait. He will not provide it that opportunity.

It is tense. They spend a cycle observing what little it does. It appears to be looking for something because it keeps circling the station, then dipping in towards the spire. Garrus assumes it is looking for an entrance to access the obelisk and obtain the information there. If it wanted to destroy the structure it would have already done so. This observation period does help convince his entire crew that his and Dr. T’soni’s “crazy” theories about the reapers are justified. Most of them are familiar with the existing evidence, but seeing the craft with their own eyes brings them across the threshold of doubt.

In the following cycle his comms team calls him to the bridge to alert him of an anomaly in the reaper’s behavior: it has stopped pacing and perched its huge, unwieldy form on the spire. They watch it carefully. Garrus assumes it is about to just obliterate the structure but then he notices a bay door opening up on its underside.

It is truly bizarre. For whatever reason he learned to think of the reaper as a single-minded creature, but according to T’soni the reapers are sapient entities… and they also function as starships; sapient starships. He scowls and recognizes the reality that they already have their own sapient starships in the works: first generation craft integrated with sapient AI are due for delivery in several years. It is worrisome. Are they building an equivalent of reapers?

Two figures leave the craft, which must be creating some kind of artificial gravity field for them down there. Garrus takes a closer look at the monitor: a turian and an asari, both of whom look a little bit… off. Garrus swears he recognizes that turian from somewhere but his face is so mangled it is difficult to say for sure. He looks like he could be an Arterius. He asks his comms people to verify.

T’soni squints at the monitor and gasps. “Goddess! That’s… that’s… that’s my mother. Matriarch Benezia… my _mother._ ”

That is, indeed, Matriarch Benezia according to his comms team. They cannot entirely verify the turian, but recent depictions of Saren Arterius provide the closest match. Garrus lets this sink in for a second before seeing blue. A _council Spectre_ killed his Lia. So the council is responsible for her death. Oh spirits, when he gets a hold of them he will make them _pay._

The spire seems to reject the presence of the reaper and its guests, because it flares up with energy when they attempt to enter the chamber. Suddenly the reaper seems to be very uncomfortable, and the two intruders quickly return. The reaper jumps out with only the faintest signature to read from. Based on the direction they can tell they headed somewhere outside of the galaxy.

T’soni is in a state of shock. She has not heard from her mother in decades and suddenly she turns up as part of the crew of this craft that murdered her friend. That they are even at this structure in the first place is a terrible sign. That reaper probably wants to destroy the station before it can be fully constructed but, for whatever reason, it cannot bear to be near this place for extended periods of time.

Garrus is furious, and all pretense of stoicism shatters with his already fragile mental state. He has to go and beat the shit out of something immediately. Focos accompanies him to the mats and allows him to vent his anger. He then breaks his own rule of never rutting one of his own squad mates, but he cannot stop himself. Tara does not hang it over his head either – she knows that he needs it, and better it be her than someone who might wrongly interpret his actions. She offers herself to help him calm down, she moves with him until he has his fill, and she stays with him for a while to make sure he does not throw himself out the airlock. He is grateful that he knows her and that his trust in her allows him to feel safe.

It will take him the better part of a day to cool down. If he attempts to make any decisions right now he will only end up making the wrong ones and endangering his crew. Once his ire clears up he will be able to figure out what they should do next. This development obviously opens up an entirely new chapter of variables and problems to investigate.

Garrus wants to shout at the council and get them to explain why they allowed one of their Spectres to board a reaper and then use it to kill his… his _mate_. Garrus cannot fathom why the council would permit this unless they knew about it all along and are accomplices to the reaper’s plan to invade. Garrus already distrusted the council to handle anything properly and now he has even more of a reason to.

Neither he nor T’soni cannot figure out why her mother is there with Saren, however. There is no motive she can imagine that her mother would have complied with. T’soni holes up in her quarters does not talk to anyone for the rest of the cycle. He grows worried when she does not come out to eat a single meal for thirty hours. Garrus goes and finds her hiding in there, surrounded by data pads, working away feverishly.

_Stop,_ “T’soni you need to…” _you smell,_ “wash yourself, Spirits. You need to eat and rest,” _right now._

“There must be something I’ve overlooked,” she sounds a bit hysterical.

_It can wait while you rest,_ “Not now. I will drag you into the showers and then into the bed if I have to. You. Need. Rest,” _now,_ he commands.

She looks up at him, pale in the face; from exhaustion or from fear he cannot tell.

“Indoctrination, Garrus,” Garrus just waits there silently for her to explain what she is talking about.

_What?_

“The reapers they… they think and communicate using fields. It’s how they can have such impossible levels of coordination with each other. But they can also use these fields to _influence_ … well us. Our weak little organic minds are highly susceptible to manipulation by whatever type of fields they use. I suspect the same was used by the obelisk.”

“So you’re saying I… we are ‘indoctrinated?’” _I saw hell, seems accurate,_ he asks calmly, still skeptical about her theory. But he knows she has found something that constitutes evidence to prove her assertions.

“I don’t know,” she finally replies, nervously, “maybe. But you haven’t even heard what it is yet. Indoctrination is a process employed by the reapers to appear more persuasive. That’s all it is. The point is not to give you clear visions and dreams – but to plant seeds of doubt and distrust. In your government, your brethren, friends, family, loved ones… yourself… your own reality.”

“So how did-” _this happen to your mother?_ He does not finish his question vocally, but based on her reaction he knows she could hear his subharmonics. He feels guilty about pressuring her to talk about that subject immediately, but he cannot take it back. T’soni casts her gaze downward in shame and sadness.

“She’s… I don’t know what happened to her exactly. Maybe they make promises and they offer to give you exactly what you want. And you listen because they have already made you easily suggestible. Then they must start whispering ideas once the indoctrination becomes strong-enough. Those ideas will seem to come from your own mind, not the reaper’s. It’s the ultimate violation of… everything. Goddess, it’s _sick!_ ”

The worst thing about T’soni’s theory of indoctrination is that, despite the lack of evidence at the moment, it correlates perfectly with that asteroid base fiasco. T’soni obviously does not know about that mission, but he knows she would recognize it as such. The “machine” those humans were referring to must have been the reaper that controlled them. He cannot quite wrap his head around why they would strive to obliterate the colony nearby, however.

Garrus has this sinking feeling that Shepard’s half of the visions could have offered more detail about this, only now they are too late to retrieve them. Garrus’ own nightmarish visions only describe what the reapers do once they arrive, not what they do to prepare the galaxy to be harvested. T’soni thinks, based on patterns in the downfall of the Prothean Empire and Garrus’ current visions from the past, that the reapers can start to influence people well before entering the galaxy. The technology behind that ability must be similar to how the obelisk works.

Either way he wants some answers from the council who, to his best knowledge have, ordered one of their Spectres to murder one of their only chances at survival. And if they do not survive because of it then they are fully to blame. T’soni remains skeptical that the council is aware of Saren’s actions.

Garrus finally secures a line with the Council.

“What is your query, Commander?” the asari councilor, Tevos, sounds bothered already.

_Don’t take that tone with me,_ he growls, “Are you aware of Saren’s involvement with the destruction of my craft and the death of Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy? How can you possible sanction the actions of this cretin?” _a monster._

“What in the name Athame are you talking about, Commander?” Tevos reels.

_Calm yourself, whelp,_ the turian councilor, Sparatus, growls back at him.

“We will not engage with you if you proceed so disrespectfully,” clips Valern.

Garrus chuffs.

“We just located Spectre Arterius aboard the ship that destroyed mine. He is colluding with a threat to the galaxy. He does not deserve the privilege of the Spectre title.”

“That is a lofty claim,” _you best have proof, child,_ Sparatus rumbles at him.

_You bet your rocollus I do,_ “I have video.”

“Very well, show us,” Valern nods. They watch with general disinterest, but Tevos reacts to Benezia’s appearance.

“Saren has earned his title and he chooses how to accomplish his assignments,” Tevos narrows her eyes.

_Are you serious?_ he almost barks a laugh, “Do you want to watch twenty different angles of that reaper destroying the _Nocveus?_ What mission have you sent him on that requires him to chase down _my ship_ and burn it?” _this is ridiculous!_

_Watch it, they will cut you off,_ Sparatus shifts and chirps to him.

“Reaper?” Tevos scoffs, “you think that is a ‘reaper?’ Commander you must be delusional.”

His mandibles droop.

“I am sorry for your losses, but that resembles geth craft. The reapers are merely a legend. Are you seriously wasting our time with nonsense, Commander?” Valern shakes his head.

“Furthermore, we cannot disclose the location and parameters of our Spectres, Commander,” _I will follow up,_ Sparatus keeps his tone even, _I apologize._

_I cannot believe this,_ “Then I am sorry that I wasted your time then,” _I am not sorry._

Garrus almost allows himself to run his mouth at them, but thinks better of it and cuts the connection.

A couple hours later in the cycle he receives a message from Command that Saren’s Spectre status was revoked many months prior due to unstable and unethical behavior. He is effectively a rogue entity now with several other council Spectres hunting him down… with unconditional execution authority. He wishes that Sparatus had helped argue his case, but it seems that talking to the council might be a lost-cause.

The council did not know about Benezia, but they do not seem to care. Anyone who entangles themselves with a Spectre, especially someone as powerful and as mature as Benezia, knows what they are getting into. He does not want talk to Liara about it, but he knows that T’soni realizes her mother would treat her as an enemy… that Benezia is no longer her mother.

Garrus wants to go after Saren – to kill him – but they do not know where Saren went and they will never have enough data to know. The council will systematically absorb all remaining information regarding his whereabouts, keeping it from prying eyes like Garrus’.

He thinks the turian councilor probably has ties to Special Forces command – that follow up message from command was too coincidental to just appear in his inbox and mention Saren just hours after a call. It means that, at the very least, the turian councilor is in the know. Unfortunately it does not seem as if he has done anything to bring up the reaper threat to the other councilors. Maybe command told Sparatus to keep it to himself so the other councilors would not think he was crazy. They probably think Garrus has lost his sanity after bringing up the reapers.

* * *

With logistics more or less figured out, Alpheos begins to move forward at full speed, hoping for a two year turnaround; one year and a bit to rebuild everything and the remainder of the schedule spent on waking her up and getting her acclimatized. They have already begun to prepare explanations and countermeasures in case Shepard is not thrilled with her new form, but Litha is confident in her subject.

The Primarch himself does not know about this project and its goals. All he knows is that he has secured an enormous quantity of funding to a Blackwatch research division to construct the greatest defensive platform the galaxy has ever known. It is risky for him to allow such a thing with so few details, but he has never been disappointed with results in the past, and Vorik has a reputation for astounding results.

Director Vorik and Doctor Litha have a small team but its is all they need. For the most part, time is their enemy. Litha has some tricks up her sleeve to get things moving quickly, which is where Ki’Senthamus comes in. He will build Alpheos a skeleton created with durable carbon nanotube weaves and layered with genetic material to integrate them soundly into the new body. Litha will work alongside him and start cellular growth from modified stem cells. They have plans to restructure several poorly-evolved turian biological systems and create a perfectly-designed being.

Lanaai, as they… as Litha calls Shepard now, will have stronger bones than any turian – in fact, she will have stronger bones than any living biped of her size. Litha takes great pride in her work; “an art form” she calls it. Vorik allows her to speak excitedly about her progress because he knows it makes her happy, and when she is happy she is agreeable… and when she is agreeable she is “safe.” It is the reason why people think she is insane, but all of this is just matter of opinion to the elderly director.

Litha does not talk about it, but she had a difficult life growing up and struggled with her self-esteem. Her Kre’laanis lineage set certain expectations for who she was supposed to become, and when she veered away from it… abuse early on led to developmental problems and ruined her chances of having a child naturally. She is practically infertile and all attempts to have a child with her mate have ended in miscarriage. Mentally, she cannot suffer through another, and that her mate is still even with her is truly a miracle. Most bonds do not survive miscarriage. Alpheos cut off yet another one of her personal research attempts to fix her womb so she can bring one child into this world for her mate.

Speaking of whom, her mate is from the northern province of Caperus and met Kel as a test subject. He was on his death bed from the moment he entered her care, incapacitated by a number of debilitating problems, both mental and physical. His plates were brittle, his immune system was incredibly weak, he could not form words due to damage and hemorrhaging in his brain, the list seemed endless… His existence is the reason why Vorik is confident that Litha will succeed with this endeavor.

Litha not only cured every ailment he had, but also proved that there was nothing particularly wrong with his genetics; only that he just drew the shortest lots. Their bond is the strongest he has ever seen between two turians and it makes him envious that such a thing could be possible between two sapient creatures.

But Kel changed something about him and he became something unspeakable. Vorik cannot quite describe it, but he understands that there is something deeply upsetting about her mate’s presence. Her mate is very a cheerful, very light-hearted young man who entirely counters Kel’s demeanor. He is easy to converse with and he always has a smile on his face… but the _reason_ for his happiness is what it so unsettling… Vorik imagines witnessing a supernova might invoke the same feeling. Her mate is happy because his understanding of the universe is so vast and so intimate, that he has no reason to fear anything anymore. The two of them are keeping something secret; Vorik could try to investigate, but he fears the consequences.

Litha seems to be completely immune to his effect just as _he_ seems to be immune from reality. The Hierarchy has a class for people like this: τ. As far as Vorik is aware, Seliron Litha is the only τ alive right now.

The outcome of their project may very well generate a second, even if that is not the goal.

Litha wanted – _wants_ – a daughter. Each one they lost had been female. Each one made it slightly farther through the gestation period than the last. Each one they called _Lanaai._

Litha clearly desires a specific outcome for her project: she wants her subject to remain the woman Shepard was, but also to be the daughter that she always hoped for. Litha makes no effort to hide the fact that she is building Lanaai using a combination of her own and her mate’s genetics. Vorik sees the desperation there and knows that it his duty to make sure she does not go completely overboard. He allows it anyway because he feels Litha is making the right choice, and she knows her mate’s genetic patterns better than most turians know their own family.

Ki’Senthamus makes good time on his replication of the turian skeleton, going as far as making his own improvements to known weaknesses. Litha encounters trouble jump-starting stem cell growth, but she perseveres and forces life into them. She starts the farms a little later than expected but she makes sure they get back on schedule. The plan is to use the skeleton as a base for the bone grafts to adhere to. Each machine-printed bone is a bare, woven nanotube lattice which will fill in with the natural carbon-calcium-resin nanotube-like weave from which turian bones naturally form.

Vorik also looks for a proper identity which their “Lanaai” can assume. This project is not his first identity transplant, and they have well-established techniques in place for such a thing. Sometimes people need to disappear for their own safety and the safety of their families or friends, and sometimes they need… _leverage._ In this case he is lucky enough to stumble across a perfect candidate within the first several weeks: Lanaai Acronus. The poor young woman was committed to a resuscitation contract just a month prior but expired due to irreparable damage to her lungs and heart. Her body is still suspended, however. Command said she died with valuable information. Litha may have saved her, but she was tied up with other work at the time.

“Perfect” is usually relative, in his experience at least, but the identity he finds is _perfect._ This woman, who shares a name the with Litha’s creation, was born to the meager Acronus family on a rock of a colony. Acronus had a strong engineering background, but was oddly mixed up with Blackwatch when she was mistakenly pulled into a field mission and performed spectacularly. Her final days were spent investigating the “Monument,” the structure which ultimately led to the demise of her squad. They do not know what her team actually discovered about the anomalous structure before it exploded, but he suspects once they bring Shepard back with the grafted memories, they will find out.

* * *

Garrus cowers before the seemingly insurmountable task of rebuilding the knowledge that Shepard possessed of this structure. It is difficult to wrap his head around where to begin. While they are extremely fortunate that Shepard left behind an enormous quantity of detailed information about this place, it is incomplete. Shepard stated that she knew what the weapon was supposed to be for, but not how it would accomplish that. She said that they would have to start completing the device and complete the sequence in her mind.

She was aware that she contained more artificial memories and dreams, but they seemed to be blocked. Now that information is gone so he has to do this the hard way. His new crew has more engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and other high-level tech officers who can help create plans and figure out how this weapon operates.

He has not felt any less angry in the two months since Shepard’s death and every little thing bothers him. He especially hates this damn station because it sinks so much of their just trying to figure it out. He has been trained to fight and to kill, but he supposes it is just his luck that all his training means little and that he has actually ended up putting his mind to much more intensive use than his body. This is what he always wanted, is it not? Maybe the universe is forcing him to stay on the path he intended to follow, and he can never truly escape it. Unfortunately, the rest of his squad are bored out of their minds, so he does not plan on staying here much longer.

Several days later, when his engineering team finally thinks they have as much data as possible with the personnel they currently have on staff, they leave. And it is over. He returns to Palaven and most of crew rotate out. The specialists, along with their data, are sucked into obscurity as Special Forces creates another invisible project somewhere else. His command over this mission earns him gratitude and a reassignment.

Off the records, command informs him that they encountered a Cerberus vessel when purging the remnants of the _Nocveus_. The informant has to explain what “Cerberus” is to Garrus, but he remembers well once he recognizes it: the group from which his team extracted that “diplomat” almost two years ago. A terrorist cell.

It means that Shepard’s assumption about her human crew was correct, and there had been a “mole” present. _At least one_. They may have been more. He had always passed off her unusually high degree of paranoia about her crew as just one of her quirks because she was always a nervous individual, even when she began to grow into herself a little more. It makes him even more frustrated that he never noticed anything, nor did he take her worries as seriously as he should have.

His pared-down team, including T’soni, go back to looking into the disappearance of those human colonies. Occasionally they receive reports about it from command and they get sent in. They are too late to record these mass disappearances one hundred percent of the time, and each time they arrive to the colony in question they find it completely deserted; no sign of struggle but also no sign that people were leaving or planned to leave. It is as if they all ceased to exist in the same moment.

Garrus is concerned not only because it is ridiculous, but because human colonies seem to be very poorly-defended in general. It is why pirate raids are statistically more likely to happen on human colony worlds than turian ones… or any other specie for that matter. The asari and salarians are known to build complex networks of defenses to counter potential raids, but humanity just sends its people onto any garden world they register to with council and expect full profit without a major investment in the colony’s well-being.

Occasionally they hear reports of geth attacks which are much easier to verify because they always leave evidence of their presence in the form of bodies and bullet holes. Why the geth are suddenly attacking human colonies is completely unknown. And not once does he ever encounter an Alliance investigative team; as if they simply do not care about their own colonies or their ships are very slow and cannot get out soon-enough to help.

Garrus digs up dust. There are no more leads on Saren or Benezia and there are no more sightings of the reaper craft. It seems like perhaps it is all just a fluke and they should not have believed in their own crazy theories. But Shepard said that was exactly what she would want her enemies to think just before attacking; incite complacency and paranoia before laying down the fire amid the confusion.

The frequency of missing colony reports drastically declines and suddenly it seems everything is back to normal. With time between assignments and no more leads, they plan to drop T’soni off on Thessia because she is no longer required for their mission. She promises to stay in contact in case anything comes up. She is not convinced it is over like everyone else thinks it is, and has only become increasingly convinced of this indoctrination theory of hers. She even goes as far as suggesting that any system with a relay could have this effect, as well as the Citadel itself.

Garrus takes it seriously because, as always, Liara has evidence and most importantly, she is not _stupid._ But there are not enough concrete examples to take her warnings to his superiors. She succeeds brilliantly in making him paranoid, unfortunately. He keeps himself and his crew away from the Citadel as much as possible. Perhaps it is his own confirmation bias that makes him see more and more political unrest on the Citadel between species. With every new cycle some ridiculous and subversive scandal materializes about a secret weapons program, political espionage, or censorship of the media.

He wakes up with a start to find T’soni pounding on the sleeping pod door with a fevered look about her. There are some other turians nearby who look at her like she has grown a second head for behaving this way towards someone of Garrus’ tier.

“Good evening, T’soni,” he slurs, tired, “I’m sorry the hatch offended you,” _I’m still quite tired._

“Garrus, they… I have a lead. I have a lead on my mother.”

Garrus’ eyes snap all the way open and his system kicks into its fully-awake state.

“Spirits. Alright we will pursue. How did you come by this lead?” _seems quite rare_ , he asks as he drags himself out of the nest and begins pulling on his compression suit.

T’soni looks around at the other turians watching their interaction; Garrus understands what the gesture means. She has this contact information illegally and cannot speak openly about it.

“At ease!” _this is between us,_ he calls out. The others nod, leaving or returning to their pods in seconds. The two of them retreat into his private workspace down the hall so they can discuss.

“I have an… an acquaintance,” she starts and then winces, “Goddess, there is no way to say that without it sounding scandalous. I met a turian at an archaeology conference once who now manages an operating branch of Synthetic Insights. On Noveria.”

Garrus rolls his eyes, _a businessman_. He is not a fan of _businessmen_.

“I was briefly working with a dig team there when they were plotting out the new hot labs and they ran into some ‘artifacts.’ Fossils and some ancient ceramics – nothing _interesting._ I also… happened to collect evidence that one of his batarian subcontractors was planning to kill a lot of his human employees in some elaborate revenge plot. I… I can’t help but observe and manage information… you know. So anyway he stays in touch. He informed me that Benezia requested permission to land there half an hour ago.”

“That’s quick. So this Qui’in figure…” _you fancy him?_

“No, Garrus.”

“Alright, alright,” _it was in poor taste,_ he stops teasing her about it and pulls up his omni-tool, “Nissus, put all four down to Noveria.”

“I’m asleep right now,” _spirits damn you,_ comes the exhausted-sounding reply.

“Thank you,” _I can count on you,_ he says as he closes the interface.

“Are you… prepared… to deal with this?” _she is our enemy, she betrayed you_ , he asks T’soni hesitantly.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your mother, Garrus? If you knew there was a chance to save her, would you not take it?”

Garrus thinks really hard about it. But now that she has him thinking it puts the icy, hopeless, sinking feeling into his gut. Would he be able to face her if she suddenly became a different person?

“Point taken. I’m not an emotional person, but you have friends on board. We’re here if you need us,” _you are safe here._

“Thanks, Garrus,” T’soni’s eyes soften as she nods, “goodnight.”


	23. Chapter 23

Alpheos runs into some trouble when they have to start rushing Lanaai’s development process. Having Shepard’s brain in a sustained system means that, while it is not neurologically active, its cells are alive. The cancer is indiscriminate: if the cells are alive then it consumes everything. The more time they spend waiting for her body to be completely grown, the less time they have to graft her mind over.

Litha noticed after some careful deliberation that Shepard’s brain had the beginnings of a malignant brain tumor in the frontal cortex – an extremely rare and _incredibly_ untreatable form of cancer in humans, even with their advances in gene therapy and resonance treatment. Investigations into the Shepard family genetics on record reveals that her father passed away from the same degeneracy. It is a shame; her father made it considerably longer before he contracted it. The Commander herself was destined to die from it far too young. Shepard had another three or four years to live at the time of her death, and at least half of that time would have been painful. In a way, this project represents the ultimate liberation from her ailments.

The compromise is to blast the entire structure of her mind into a quantum storage unit and use that to interface with the rest of the new body’s systems while her new turian brain slowly develops. It is extremely risky because they have no idea how much they are going to lose by inserting this intermediate step. The beauty of the previous plan was that they could copy everything down to the spins of the electrons if they needed to, but now they have to settle for a potentially lower-resolution image. It could mean that Lanaai wakes up with holes in her past or her personality, or that this will allow the donor identity to resurface over Shepard’s.

But they have made it too far to give up. They team has been working feverishly to get her constructed and filled out. The sheer volume of cell growth is ridiculous, and it must all be completed in parallel. They have an entire greyhouse filled with incubation sites dedicated to growing different parts of her, from individual organs and muscles to entire superstructures like her arms and legs. It is a dangerous choreography, one that costs the brilliant minds involved in the project the majority of their sanity.

They manage to keep everything from falling to pieces at the cost of certainty. At the very least the progress they have made is staggering. A number of breakthroughs in neuronal grafting and prosthetic construction techniques will become available to their brothers and sisters in the upcoming years. After growing nearly forty complete arms, legs, spines, and carapaces, they have a firm grasp on how to give entire limbs back to turians who have lost them.

They might also be able to finally cure Corpalis and Korvan’s; Ceverellum.

She might finally be able to have her daughter.

* * *

Noveria is terrible and he hates the cold, but not as much as his squad hates the cold. Bridge always had cold winters so he has some immunity to it, and the Vakarian clan hails from the north of Palaven where a blanket of snow covers the ground for the majority of the year. His genetics make him resistant to the cold, courtesy of his father, but his lankier build means he does not stand up to it very well, courtesy of his mother.

T’soni’s lead a very lucky catch. According to this “Lorik Qui’in,” who they have yet to meet in person, Benezia has barely just arrived before them. She would have taken slower transport than her personal reaper to appear inconspicuous. The one silver lining about Qui’in’s businessman-like comportment is that he feels naturally obligated to repay T’soni for her previous assistance.

Lorik Qui’in is not quite what Garrus expects him to be, because after speaking with him for several minutes, he appears to be much less slimy than he had anticipated. Garrus cannot pick out any behavioral tells that indicate he is attempting to rip them off or intentionally mislead them, which are typical of _his kind._ There is nothing he says that strikes him as a red flag. Garrus is wary, but Qui’in comes across a genuine-enough person, despite his somewhat suggestive subharmonics when speaking with T’soni. He will believe what Qui’in says for now.

“Benezia has an appointment with a ‘contact of hers’” _honest words, sarcastically spoken,_ “at the Peak 15 labs,” Qui’in is noticeably discontent with the lack of detail, _my azure beauty_ “Doctor T’soni’s request to remain vigilant for the Honorable Matriarch Benezia did seem odd to me, but the suspiciously convenient set of clearances Benezia waved around before docking are equally questionable,” _out of my hands._

He sighs and glares at the snow whirling around outside the triple-paned window in a weak attempt to calm himself. It is clear that he dislikes ceding control simply because some “clearances” require him to.

_She is untrustworthy,_ “I do no trust her intentions here; my apologies Doctor,” _you poor thing,_ “and I do not trust the division of Synthetic Insights stationed in Peak 15. I have no clearance or authority to deal with their operation,” _shit of raax, I do declare. pardon my language,_ “Since they own the building, they are permitted to bring in private ships and we are not allowed to scan them. I protest against this policy, but my superior insists that it makes our prospects more attractive.”

Garrus hums and buzzes, _we are unbound,_ “Well, we have no issues breaking some rules here or there because we do not exist.”

_I see,_ comes the cautious reply from Qui’in who must now be realizing that he is speaking with a Blackwatch Agent.

_We may need passage,_ Garrus hums, implying heavily that they will _not,_ in fact, require a pass to reach their destination or complete the mission. Qui’in shifts nervously again while he processes the request. Eventually he produces a key card and hands it Garrus, who scans it with his omni-tool before stowing it in a secure compartment.

_Hopefully this minimizes collateral,_ “This should allow you to pass through security and open a few doors if you need to,” _at the cost of my job._

_I am grateful for your trust,_ Garrus raises a hand to his chest, “You have my word, then. And if your sacrifice produces consequences, I will provide you with safe passage out of here.”

_One more thing…_ “I am sorry I cannot provide you with more, substantial access. I suspect that one of my superiors has been generously incentivized to remain taciturn regarding Peak 15. I do not see how Honored Matriarch Benezia was able to bypass our standard docking procedures and proceed directly to the facility in an unregistered shuttle,” _highly suspect._

Garrus raises his brows, _do you have proof?_ “Who is this superior of yours? Administrator Anoleis?”

Qui’in blanches, _I do not wish to say,_ “Uh…”

Garrus shrugs, _Just say the word or suit yourself,_ “Alright. Thank you for your help, Qui’in, you have mine if you need it,” _sincerely._ Garrus bows his head slightly.

Garrus and T’soni head back to the docking bay so they can board their assault shuttle and head to Peak 15. The card is a backup, one that Garrus did not think Qui’in would provide. In general, Garrus did not expect to gain the trust of a _businessman._

_One more chance,_ “T’soni, now is your last change to back out of this,” he turns his gaze to hers and holds it while she fights to keep her eyes on his.

“No. I have to do this. I have to see her.”

_You will not save her,_ “I am going to kill her, Liara,” he growls. She frowns.

“I… I know. But let me talk to her first,” she swallows and hold her ground. Her innocence has long since perished. She knows Benezia is no longer her mother, despite the appearance. Garrus says nothing in reply. Talking will achieve nothing at this point.

When they reach the Peak 15 hot labs they still have no idea what they will find inside the complex. Garrus has flashbacks to the asteroid base – will this be another instance where the workers have all been gripped by madness? They also have no idea where Benezia is, just that she is in there somewhere and that they have to find her and “deal” with her. The more they discuss why Benezia would want to come here the more paranoid they become. Whatever is in these labs might be as dangerous as the sphere station or the asteroid base.

Despite the fact that he has already warned Liara that he is going to kill Benezia, he cannot tell her that he is practically _aching_ to. He knows revenge is pointless and will not bring Shepard back, but Benezia is dangerous and directly fueling the enemy and turian psychology regarding revenge skips several logical steps. He knows it will bring him some measure of peace and he knows that he will enjoy it, but he is afraid that he will want _more._

Once they get close enough, Sidonis can start working his way into low-level security camera access to gather information about their environment. He barely speaks as he works and then after a moment he looks up with disbelief and fear in his eyes. Garrus takes a look and becomes equally shocked.

_Rachni_? T’soni also takes a look – and she says the words on his mind out loud:

“Are those… _rachni_?”

The rest of the squad immediately look up and pile over to see. There are corpses of what appear to be rachni strewn about nearby their trashed containment cells along with obvious signs of struggle: bent metal plates, crimson and cobalt streaks, bullet holes, and what appears to be _acid damage._

“Goddess, she’s here for them isn’t she? She wants to _use_ them,” T’soni gasps. Now they really have to stop Benezia.

“This is going to be an exact repeat of the asteroid base, isn’t it?” _tell me otherwise,_ Focos says gravely.

“-What? Asteroid base?-” T’soni asks as he replies.

“Only with a lot more shouting, scrambling, and _bugs_ ,” _of course,_ Garrus follows. “Obviously these are not humanoid targets and we don’t know how they fight so just… be careful, I see acid damage there,” _don’t go rushing in,_ he tells his mobility.

“-what-”

_Actually, I change my mind_ “Quo’an and Focos are going to stay with the group this time, rather than attempt to scout forward. Too risky”

“-Garrus-”

_Not right now,_ he growls, “Later, T’soni. I thought we already talked about this, but I guess we haven’t.”

She snaps her mouth shut and looks away from him.

They know rachni are like the geth: hive-minded (somehow), incredibly dangerous, and incredibly hostile. They have no sense of individual survival to exploit, so they will fight to the last colony worker to preserve their queen and their hive.

_It’s not pretty,_ “Qui’in was right be nervous,” Garrus mutters, _change of plans,_ “We are now on an extermination mission because we have no other choice. I see no evidence that we will not be attacked on sight by these creatures.”

The rachni are an invasive species perfected by a harsh evolution into one of the most dangerous lifeforms in recorded history. For all they know, whoever brought them back may have improved their efficacy as well.

Sidonis has trouble finding any sign that anyone is still alive inside the labyrinthine halls. He also cannot find any evidence of Benezia’s presence here, despite the fact that her ship is still docked back at Hanshan. It is quite clear that they will not be strolling through the entrance… he is going to have to make a good guess and then have Sidonis blast them a way in. The server room is their preliminary target so Sidonis can scavenge for more information about what happened here.

They circle the compound for a while before locating an entry point. The group of them bunch up around Sidonis to keep the cold away from him while he sets up explosive charges for entry. Nissus hovers at a distance and aims the heat radiation from the thrusters their way. They blow the charge and group up to move in. He orders T’soni to stay on the shuttle, which she is not happy about, and she does as she is told.

“Weapons free,” _fatal shots priority,_ he commands as they drop through the scarred and blackened panels. The blast will have alerted the enemy to their presence and they do not know what kind of numbers they are dealing with. They have to make a break for the server room and tap into the lab’s communications network for more detailed information.

Garrus examines the corpses of these “rachni” while Sidonis locates the server room relative to their current location. Peak 15 is apparently known for its ability to rent out space for any project, regardless of the ethical ramifications, provided the client has enough credits. Resurrecting a species which does nothing except expand and kill everything without remorse seems like a quite ridiculous transgression against even the loosest forms of ethics. Qui’in’s superior would absolutely know about this.

The group stays together as they move while Garrus’ eyes remain glued to the sensors, scanning carefully for any signs of an impending assault. He also looks around for signs of Benezia’s presence, whatever they may be. He picks up something, the slightest fluctuation of the EM field which trips of the EM sensorlets in his forehead. He takes his helmet off quickly and concentrates. His team pause to wait for him to make a deliberation – his ability to detect EM disturbances is unnaturally acute for turians, so they cannot feel what he does.

“We have company. Can’t figure out numbers or speed – but they are here. The bugs,” _spirits guide us_ , Garrus clarifies. His heart rate augments. There is a terrifying difference between fighting against other sapients and fighting against _animals._

Lo’kian hefts his anti-materiel repeater to his side, grunting, _ready_. They end up at the server room without a confrontation yet, but inspection of the human, salarian, asari, and rachni corpses reveals a great deal of strife. One of the eviscerated victims has an access key on them which fails to open the door, much to their chagrin. Luckily the card Qui’in provided grants them entry to the server room without resorting to explosive charges.

Sidonis gains access to the servers and begins breaking through security. These are tight systems, however, and it could take him a while. He has to be careful to bypass safeguards and remain undetected from the security software in place. The now-deceased info-sec team here was understandably quite accomplished in order to keep their networks secure and their operation obscured.

“Here they come” _many of them_ , Garrus bites out when he feels the disturbance grow. He replaces and re-seals his helmet and powers up his targeting systems. Their attackers are definitely the bugs because none of the other sapient galactic species have this much of an effect on the EM field. This mechanism allows them to sustain a networked hivemind, but it also means they can be cut off from the hivemind very easily with EMP charges. Garrus orders his squad to load up on EM rounds.

Rachni scouts begin to hammer at the door to the server room, putting pressure on Sidonis to hurry along. Garrus has Focos and Quo’an rig up additional charges around the back of the room to give them an exit. The door has trouble holding against whatever is happening out there, which does not bode well considering the server room has one of the strongest doors in the building. Fortunately Sidonis has some other options to give them more time. He jacks in a remote input device so they can leave early while he continues to break into the log storage. Garrus grabs his wrist and leads him, allowing him to continue working without devoting precious attention to where they are headed.

Their exit charges go off as the door cracks and the acrid stench of acid seeps in, even through their respirators. Lo’kian opens up on their entryway, blasting the bugs to pulpy, chitinous bits with his repeater. The EM-disruptor rounds confuse the other rachni for long enough to buy them some additional time. Quo’an and Focos have to resort to their ranged weaponry to avoid contact with the deadly acid – because _of course_ the bugs spit acid.

Garrus’ heart rate climbs as they quickly lose ground over the masses of rachni that stream down the hallway after them. They need evac because there is no way they will be able to handle all of these swarming enemies. He has no idea what their true numbers are but he cannot risk it, even if it means waiting to find out where Benezia is hiding down there.

They sprint back to hole they blasted and climb back out into the bitter cold. Nissus appears out of nowhere with her shuttle and blasts the wall behind them with a hail of explosive rounds, danger close. He will let it slide because they would be dead otherwise. The volley liquefies the wave of bugs in his wake and gives his squad more time to mount into the shuttle. They climb on board to find a very distraught T’soni inside. Everything about this scenario is terrible.

_I have it!_ Sidonis trills triumphantly, “I have pretty good idea about where Benezia is stationed. The bad news is that we have to go back into the hell we just left in order to reach a central vault.”

They _need_ a quicker and safer way to get in, because there is simply no chance he allow will T’soni to accompany them through a horde of rachni. Garrus growls in frustration. Shepard would have figured something out; she would have generated some ridiculous plan, but it would have worked perfectly.

T’soni speaks up, “They… the rachni are highly temperature sensitive. They lived in caves where the temperature was extremely consistent… cold. Turning up the temperature in the station could… incapacitate them. Maybe. But they aren’t normal rachni. It’s plain to see that they are modified. They could be different.”

“Sidonis…” _do it_ , Garrus starts. He will take the risk.

“Done. Temperature to… wow…” _how is this possible?_ “temperature to 90 C,” _burn them_.

_Indeed,_ “Hot labs,” Quo’an chuffs.

Sidonis takes a look at sensor data as they park beneath a rock formation out of the weather. They wait for half an hour just be sure they are reading correctly. Garrus is shocked they designed the building to even be capable of such a thing. Their environmental suits can only handle the ridiculous temperature for a limited period of time so speed will be imperative during the next leg of their mission.

Sidonis has located a sealed vault inside which there are no sensors or surveillance equipment – this is where they assume Benezia is stationed. They can only afford to make one pass at it with their current stock of demolitions equipment. The team draws up a plan of attack which looks like: sprint in hoping that the rachni will have trouble following them, blast a hole in the vault, and deal with whatever is on the other side before they get roasted.

They return to their entry point, noting the incredible thermal radiation pouring from the internals of the structure. Garrus refuses to have Sidonis turn down the temperature as a precaution to keep the rachni out of their way. T’soni will come with them this time now that they know it will be “safer.” So they run. And they find struggling rachni all over the place, still alive but too defeated by the heat to do anything.

They reach the vault door and Sidonis gets to work. Garrus hears the fans in his suit begin to pick up as the heat begins to become a pressing issue.

“Clear!” Sidonis shouts in warning.

T’soni surprises them and throws a powerful barrier around the explosive, shaping all of its energy into the vault door. They pack into the opening and briefly relish the normal temperature.

There is Benezia, looking as shocked as they are. Her eyes dart to T’soni’s briefly before scowling.

“Meddling Archive,” she speaks, her voice amplified, “I will scrape your pitiful existence from us as easily as a supernova casts apart the elements!”

Garrus rolls his eyes.

“Mother stop this!” Liara shouts. Benezia completely ignores her daughter and focuses on the attackers instead. Garrus pulls Liara down into cover and growls at her as bullets begin to fly over their heads.

“Have you ever faced asari commandos before, pitiful creatures? None have and ever lived to speak of it,” that puts him on edge, not because her threat is concerning, but because biotics are difficult to deal with and they are improperly equipped.

“T’soni, don’t do anything stupid!” _stay put,_ he almost shouts in her face.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” she retorts as she pops up and grills two unsuspecting targets with a disturbingly-powerful reave. Garrus winces. Spirits, she must be _angry_. T’soni has never used her biotics in front of him before so he had no idea what to expect from her.

“Mother it’s me!” she tries again. Garrus leaves cover to make sure T’soni does not immediately perish and starts hammering a geth sniper with anti-materiel fire. Benezia, clearly, is under someone else’s control.

Quo’an and Focos break out to take on the commandos. Garrus wants to make a comment to Benezia about ever facing “Blackwatch mobility: none have ever lived to speak of it,” but he concentrates on the distanced targets instead. Lo’kian suppresses the biotics so they cannot obtain a focused read on Quo’an and Focos. Asari have thick skin but their bones, while quite hard, are relatively brittle. Focos and Quo’an use their kinetic energy and superior durability to shatter the skulls and rib cages of the lightly-armored asari commandos, whose kinetic shielding does nothing against low-frequency, high-energy impacts.

When Focos or Quo’an become trapped by stasis fields, T’soni is right there to snap them out. She is actually turning out to be quite a valuable addition to the ground team and a very powerful biotic for her “age” – that is, when she is furious.

Garrus finally turns his rifle on Benezia, who has been hurling biotic attacks and spitting nonsense at them from the back of the vault. T’soni has given up on shouting to her because it has no effect. He gave T’soni her chance and now he takes his. Garrus clips the matriarch’s calf with a well-placed shot, which tears her lower leg clean off.

Benezia cries out and topples to the ground. T’soni bolts and Garrus follows her. Lo’kian takes off behind them. The rest of her Benezia’s forces are effectively neutralized, leaving just the matriarch. Liara reaches her mother first and glares at Garrus for a moment before turning back.

“Little wing…” Benezia says softly, “In the pain I have a moment of clarity… I forgive your friends, it was the only way. I don’t have much time – the whispers are too loud, even now.”

“What whispers?” T’soni asks frantically.

“They come from Saren’s ship – it whispers. I know I would do anything to appease it, because it offers me relief from the pain of lost loves, old wounds, regrets, and it offers me an irresistible reward of… something, I’m not even sure at this point. But I can tell they are wrong… I can tell because they put a barrier between you and me, Little Wing.”

Liara’s eyes starting to glaze over. Her and her mother’s eyes flash black for a moment, losing their irises. Garrus can tell information has been exchanged.

“You need to fight it mom! We can save you!” Liara tires desperately, once the clouds in her eyes dissipate.

“I leapt off the edge already when I thought I could pull myself back up. Saving me would require you to follow me down, and then it would be too late for both of us. I need you to promise me, Little Wing, that you’ll kill Saren for what he’s done… to me, to himself, to us, and this galaxy. It is the only way. But first, you need to bring peace to me… before I turn back.”

Benezia raises a shaking finger and points to the sidearm on Garrus’ hip. Garrus numbly hands it to Liara, who is on the edge of bawling like an infant. Ordinarily this gesture would be considered serious courtship or even an invitation to bond, but right now it is a condemnation. Garrus remembers the feeling of hearing Lia deliver her final words as he was helpless to save her; as she was powerless to control her fate. He completely empathizes with Liara. His hand rests on her shoulder.

“Please, Little Wing, before my mind clouds over once again. I love you, Liara. I will return to you, in whatever form that may be,” Garrus chokes a bit as she says the almost the exact same words he remembers from Lia.

Liara kisses her mother’s forehead and then looks away as her finger depresses the trigger of the sidearm. Garrus watches carefully, however, to confirm that her shot is fatal. It is. Matriarch Benezia is dead. Liara whimpers softly but stands up, keeping her gaze away from her mother. Garrus accepts his sidearm back from her. Despite their bleak scenario, he cannot help but notice that T’soni’s stance and grip on the sidearm speaks of experience that T’soni has never revealed or readily demonstrated. But she has fired a gun before, that much is evident.

Benezia’s final words confirm T’soni’s theory about indoctrination, but they still have no idea what she was doing here with rachni, or where Saren is. Sidonis kneels down and cuts the omni-tool core out of Benezia’s wrist for data extraction once they get back on their ship. The room is also heating up as the super-heated air from outside pours in through the hole they blasted in the vault. It is time to leave.

The rachni that remain just barely alive have given up their attempts to move as his group hurries by. It is almost as if they were under Benezia’s control and now that their hivemind queen is lost so are they.

Garrus and his team’s suits are already taxed from the fight so they hardly last in the heat. T’soni starts to scream as her suit’s environmental regulator fails and exposes her to the full heat of the air. Lo’kian picks her up and hauls her along as they bolt into the waiting shuttle, panting.

T’soni needs immediate medical attention to address her burns. Even her thick skin could not prevent the radiation from penetrating below her outer epidermal layers and causing nerve damage. The rest of the squad respectfully look away while Garrus helps her strip out of her suit which is still hot to the touch. Liara stands completely bare before him as he administers a spray of medigel from the emergency applicator aboard the shuttle. She is shivering, but not because of the cold. It will help for now but she will need a proper submersion treatment to fully heal. He flinches; turians have no qualms about nudity around other turians, but asari and humans have no natural covering to protect themselves and seeing so much skin seems like a violation of privacy.

Her eyes are closed tightly and her face is contorted with discomfort. Garrus can feel her biotics flaring and sparking as she holds his wrist to keep herself steady. She gulps down a few cups of water and then leans against his armor, still breathing heavily. Garrus avoids placing his hands on her skin which is still tender – he also does not want to touch her in general, not in this vulnerable and almost intimate circumstance.

The medic greets them in the hangar bay and he helps carry T’soni to the medbay for a submersion treatment. The rest of them continue on to debrief without even stopping to rest. They will need to contact Qui’in and let him know that the Peak 15 labs are completely trashed and will require a cleanup team to deal with all the bodies in there. It is highly likely the Peak 15 labs will cease operations entirely because it will be cheaper to abandon them than repair them.

“Mr. Qui’in,” _are you there?_ Garrus speaks into his comms which pop as they link up with the other end.

“Yes, Commander. How did you fare?” _I hope you were successful._

_You could say that,_ “We did not lose anyone. Peak 15 is gone, however. You will need to call down a cleanup team… or just stop expecting to see any further activity from there.”

_Spirits me,_ “That is… not my business. My concern is with Hanshan and her inhabitants.”

_Well then,_ “I have enough evidence to implicate any of your superiors as well. My tech specialist will provide you a secure archive containing most of our ‘inspection’” _direct infiltration._

Qui’in buzzes and trills anxiously.

_It’s insurance,_ “If they threaten to terminate your career, then you can easily end theirs. The field is level. You have my contact if you have an emergency, Mr. Qui’in,” _I hope you stay well._

_Of course, thank you,_ “Alright Commander. It was my pleasure working with you and Doctor T’soni,” _my treasure._

Garrus flops into his nesting pod after hearing that T’soni is in a stable condition. Too much has happened today. When he wakes up to find Sidonis still awake and working on Benezia’s omni-tool, Garrus orders him to rest.

“You did outstanding work under pressure on that mission, Sidonis,” _I am truly proud to call you a teammate,_ “We would not have made any headway without your expertise and quick thinking. Now go to bed before I throw you in there myself.”

_I wouldn’t mind you throwing me in there,_ he chuffs suggestively, “Yes sir. Thank you, Garrus,” he nods and scurries down the hall to his nesting pod.

Garrus takes over where Sidonis left off, not a stranger to data mining. The breadth of his knowledge on breaking into secure systems is far superseded by Sidonis’, but his attention to details makes it easier for him to spot patterns by performing regression and matrix calculations in his head.

The wealth of information recovered from Benezia’s omni-tool regarding Saren is extensive. There are also a number of personal journal entries that document her slow descent into indoctrination, confirming T’soni’s theories in a near-literal manner. Garrus begins the laborious task of sanitizing and organizing the information they have collected into a system of reports and making the necessary calls to organize their next endeavor.

* * *

A year and several sections after Alpheos began they have a perfect, beautiful, young-adult female turian lying on their operating table. Litha and her team of surgeons, as well as Ki’Senthamus and his four associates have absolutely outdone themselves. Litha spends the final days gazing upon her daughter and admiring the work of her team. She wishes her mate could experience this with her, but she understands the risk of bringing anyone from the outside into this room no matter how much she trusts and loves him. She has a feeling that he already knows.

They have also completed the grafting process from the donor identity ahead of schedule. These memories are real and they give Lanaai the turian identity that she absolutely needs in order to _be_ turian. The woman they awaken needs to know people, and conversely, people need to know her. Eventually she will cross paths with someone who has some connection to her, and lying about her relationships will be visible to any turian no matter how much she tries to conceal it.

Luckily for them and as far as they can tell, their donor was… alone… when she died; no life partners or bonded ones, only a few close friends… even fewer _alive_ close friends. They considered interviewing this “Delian” character for more insight, but thought better of mentioning her to him. He needs to focus on his Blackwatch work more than he needs reminders of someone he lost.

Lanaai may or may not recall these memories immediately, but they should become available when her mind draws upon them, depending on the stability of Shepard’s “three-quarters” when they wake Lanaai. Both individuals – Shepard and Acronus – were both exceptionally strong-willed, so while they expect Shepard’s mind to force itself onward despite its lack of experience in the new body, they must remain vigilant for an internal struggle.

All of their testing indicates that they were successful with the memory grafting, but they still do not quite know what will happen when they wake up Lanaai. The intermediate step seems to have worked, but the cancer cells have consumed Shepard’s brain so thoroughly now that they can only verify a couple of sites. They assume, if they have done everything correctly, that she will wake up and immediately pick up where she left off – presumably dying in space. So they prepare for her to be panicked and confused, but she will be _Shepard._

They start up her low-level metabolic and cardiovascular systems, all of which function nominally. _She breathes._ Currently her body is sustaining itself with nutrient input from an IV line, meaning her standard turian subconscious processes are functioning correctly. Building a bridge between her human experience and the various turian processing cortexes has also been an interesting challenge to solve, and without any real-world inputs to process, her mind has very weak connections with her senses. She will feel numb and may not even have access to some of her sensors when she wakes. Her mind will have to adapt to the new inputs and interpret them, even with the assistance from the neural harness they built directly into her nervous system.

There have been some opportunities to install control hardware as “added insurance,” and to “guarantee a return on their investment.” Command pushed the idea on his project, but Vorik and Litha disagreed vehemently with them and fought back. Lanaai must return the same woman that Shepard was – they do not need additional modifications. Lanaai will be loyal to them just as Shepard already was.

Shepard was on record as having turian tendencies: fluency in _Praexus_ and indications that she could at least read and write in the dominant Novataetran dialect, sleeping in turian nesting pods when she could, spending most of her time around the turian crew. Most of her preferences for food and music drew mostly from northern and Likrin influences. During his brief visitation at Command, her former instructor Kato Avalenus had even expressed his dismay that she seemed to be a turian restrained inside a human body. If anything, they are providing her with the form she always needed.

They are already looking for personal trainers who can guide her through physical therapy. Vorik considers her old instructor, but he is tied down with other Blackwatch obligations; the same is true for young Commander Vakarian’s former mentor Octavian Intalus. Litha convinces Vorik that it is not a good idea anyway because they should not give her access to people from her past or those who would remind her. Additionally, they need someone who can handle administering psychological therapy, as Lanaai will most likely have identity trauma due to the dissociation between her mind and body. After all, they have taken a human consciousness and planted it into a turian body. No matter how “turian” Shepard tried to be, nothing could prepare her for this.

No one can even understand or comprehend what this experience will be like for her, and Litha is fascinated by it. Unfortunately for Lanaai, and similarly to Litha’s mate, she will remain under the jurisdiction of a six-decade-long research contract to continuously evaluate her mental state long into her old age; for better or for worse they will watch her every move.

Vorik does whatever he can to placate command, especially now that they have other problems to deal with. The considerable size increase of their fleets, and the fortification of Palaven and her sister colonies have garnered attention to the turian species as a whole. That scrutiny has increased tensions and generated conflicts with the krogan and more recently the asari, though they do not talk about it and pretend like it does not exist.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what I was thinking when I initially wrote this chapter. I will post it anyway for continuity's sake.

Benezia’s omni-tool does not contain any useful way to locate Saren; they just know that he is searching for Ilos to find something “important” there. They cannot dredge up any evidence to suggest that Benezia ever knew what Saren was planning to find on Ilos either, but the information means nothing to them. Saren and the reaper are still out there and they could be _anywhere_ , and the Mu relay has been impossible to locate for thousands of years after it lost course and ceased to track.

Garrus awkwardly visits T’soni in her submersion chamber, trying to keep his eyes off her. The notion of finding her attractive feels wrong to him, but he supposes all the time spent around humans makes him partial to the asari figure as well.

“Thank you for… getting me out of there. I suppose I should thank Lo’kian as well.”

“It was a team effort. I’m sorry it had to be this way,” _she had to die,_ he half-apologizes, half-growls.

“Another grain of salt on the pile at this point. I won’t cry about it anymore… it’s not like we spoke often. I hadn’t seen her for fifty years… she… I left early to be someone else.”

She stares off into the distance for a moment before starting up again.

“Enough about me, I’m just making this awkward… well more awkward than my indecency makes it. My mother passed me some information before I… anyway… apparently the ‘research division’ working in that space, Binary Helix, resurrected a rachni queen. Benezia paid them to do it because she knew that was the only way to locate the Mu relay,” T’soni shakes her head and inhales in disbelief.

“The rachni were the last species to know the precise location… and enough credits will seem to get whatever you want these days, including overcoming death… goddess. The queen on site was killed when the environmental controls were overloaded. They are truly an extinct species now, but mother already had what she wanted. And now I have it. I know where the Mu relay is… to within 300,000 km thereabouts.”

_That is reasonably precise,_ he hums. Garrus moves to say something but T’soni cuts him off. “She gave me other memories and information. Saren also knows the locus, but he ‘has not begun his search.’”

“Good… then we can catch him off guard,” _and kill him_.

“Garrus,” T’soni shakes her head, “he has an army of geth. He has a reaper. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

_I know,_ “Not with that attitude,” Garrus’ mandibles flatten against his face with a click. T’soni is exactly right. With or without the geth support, they would be unable to destroy the reaper with their current suite of firepower.

“Do you know what they were hoping to find on Ilos?” _I hope,_ he asks.

“I can’t… no. I can’t tell. It’s unclear. Mom… Benezia was never presented that information. We already know Ilos is a lost prothean colony, so it seems obvious that Saren – or rather the reapers – seem to think that there is something on Ilos of value. It could be like the sphere station; there might be another obelisk-type artifact or… something like that,” T’soni knits her brows together as she concentrates.

“That seems reasonable. Saren did manage to find the sphere station somehow,” _barefaced, traitorous bastard._

“Do you think the crew had someone on board giving him information?” T’soni looks up with concern.

“Definitely. Shepard had been… nervous about that. She was never wrong about these things.”

Liara considers it for a second, but her expression shifts quickly to horror.

“Garrus,” she starts, “what if the reapers know where the sphere station is. And it’s another trap.”

_It isn’t,_ his mandibles click against his jaw, “not everything in this galaxy can be one of their ploys.”

“We are here, theoretically, because the reapers allowed it. Why didn’t that reaper destroy the station then? It could easily have done so.”

_I don’t know,_ “Something about the sphere station is unbearable. I just don’t know what. But we have to focus on Ilos for right now.”

He shakes his head so they can get back on topic, “If Saren wants whatever is on Ilos that badly then it must be as important as the sphere station. Do you think it is another weapon?”

“Mom did not get the impression that he is looking for a weapon.”

_Odd,_ “So he is looking for information,” _not what I expected,_ Garrus postulates.

“Perhaps. But it’s possible that whatever is on Ilos is like the sphere station. It isn’t really a ‘weapon,’ at least not in a conventional way… more like a tool or a structure which accomplishes some complex task.”

“I don’t think I can handle another obelisk…” _hell is an unforgiving place,_ he shifts nervously.

“I can help if you’ll have me,” she assures him with a hopeful tone. She is inviting herself to stay on his crew, a concept which he is perfectly okay with as of late. Her performance thus far on the ground and aboard his craft have been phenomenal. He needs a friend with him anyway. And, she seems to have fragments of the obelisk’s imagery after she helped join Shepard and his own minds.

“You will be there. I just hope we can make it in time… But we aren’t equipped to make that jump. We have to restock,” _and you need to recover._

The amount of time it takes them to complete their resupply bothers him. In every waking moment the Mu relay is on his mind and it grates on his conscious to know that they are losing time to Saren. It takes them two weeks to stop by one of their covert supply stations and obtain supplies and additional provisions for the Mu relay jump. He makes damn sure they have the proper gear for infiltration. He does not want faulty equipment to destroy their operation as it nearly did when his team extracted that “diplomat.”

T’soni’s various research projects regarding indoctrination are not very rewarding either. There is no real way prove or detect that indoctrination is _real_ despite the first-hand account from Benezia. Detecting indoctrination would require an intimate knowledge of the field manipulation technology employed by the reapers, which is beyond anybody’s comprehension. T’soni sarcastically remarks that they should just study the Citadel because it might as well be a reaper-built structure. Garrus seriously considers it, but he needs her with him when they reach Ilos.

They receive an important message from the council, unexpectedly: Saren made the mistake of accessing the Spectre archives and they have been able to trace the origin of the break-in back to a specific location. For once Garrus is impressed with the competence shown by some poor, unnamed soul who did the grunt-work to locate the signal source. Normally the council keeps those people well away from “dangerous” matters like this one.

The location looks like nonsense but he knows better. When T’soni takes a look she also understands what it means. Saren is near the Mu relay, and it is likely that he is about to make the jump. Garrus orders Nissus to move to that location as quickly as possible. They begin preparations ahead of their journey because they will have little time to pinpoint the relay once they arrive in that locus.

They arrive in the vicinity of the Mu relay and begin the grueling task of finding the structure in the local nebula. The glowing gases wreak havoc with most of their sensors so they have resorted to looking _really hard_ for it. They have LIDAR and high resolution optical cameras. It is the best they can do. After five cycles of feverishly and systematically searching they finally locate the relay because they spot the emissions from all the geth ships surrounding it, all of which are noisy, large, and very easy to see. They can sneak by, but the geth on this end will notice the relay activate and realize something went through. The _Ketos_ will be able to fly under their sensors, but their enemy will be on high alert.

With everyone briefed and prepared to jump, Nissus expertly guides them through the geth fleet and jumps through the Mu relay. If they have troubles or they have to abandon ship, it is extremely unlikely that rescue would be able to reach them. Garrus has made damn sure that all of their evidence and data is backed up at command and a number of other secure locations in case he cannot make it back. He starts streaming their sensor data and a number of camera feeds directly to a site back at command so every last millisecond of their journey will be documented.

The jump ends after nearly a cycle. Nissus has to whip the starship out of the detection range of the geth fleet on this end, which are now looking out for an intruder. It is highly-likely that Saren now knows about their presence, which means the reaper does as well. Any slip-ups will be fatal.

They set a collision course for the planet and reengage their Lykroa cloak to drift closer under an impenetrable veil of invisibility. They eventually spot the rest of the geth fleet, using only the barest hint of light collection to monitor their exterior.

Saren is a dead man. Garrus is going to slice him open him with his bare talons the moment he gets the chance. After they learn what he knows, his gloves are coming off.

“T’soni, if need be, are you prepared to… extract information from Saren?” _without consent._

T’soni looks up from her work with a grave expression. She does not appear to be offended by the question, but rather disturbed by what she is about to say.

“I will go to any length to use his mind for the protection of our galaxy,” she replies, completely seriously.

Garrus notes how much she has become like Shepard was. The experiences she has, especially recently, have hardened her into a jaded, almost apathetic, calculating mastermind. There is only so much one can witness before it becomes impossible to ignore the harsh brutality of everything. He did not expect T’soni to agree to such a thing, but she is just as furious as he is because Saren and his reaper have taken away important parts of their lives. Revenge is petty and they both know that killing Saren will not fix what cannot be undone, but killing him will make them feel safer knowing they have tackled another obstacle; that they have made progress against their seemingly insurmountable enemy.

Half a cycle later they are locked into low orbit around Ilos, still drifting beneath their cloak. T’soni starts scanning the surface for evidence of the defunct prothean colony rumored to be down there somewhere. She has idea where to look, but the prothean manuscripts that hint its location are incredibly vague. The passage of time may have overwhelmed it as well.

As it turns out, they do not really need to look for long because they spot a cluster of geth craft hovering over the ruins. They also spot the reaper much closer to the planet’s surface. Saren is likely down there _right now_. Garrus starts to itch and become anxious; they are so close to taking him down, spirits, to _ripping his plates from his hide_. They prepare an approach and an infiltration strategy as this will be a full-on stealth operation. Any provocation will result in the immediate destruction of their team.

Garrus plans to go in with just T’soni and Sidonis. His squadmates protest against the idea of such a minimal setup but he assures them that it will maximize their odds of going undetected. Nissus will have a very narrow window in which to drop their shuttle without alerting the geth fleet. They have no idea if the reaper will detect their entry but they plan as if it will not. Garrus is willing to take the risk – he has no reason to believe the reaper would have powerful-enough equipment to detect their presence. The atmosphere down there is very think and very turbulent, acting like a blanket of noise. At worst the reaper might identify them as falling debris.

The descent is tense and bumpy. Nissus does her best to keep the shuttle under control while they are blasted from all angles by vortexes and patches of rougher air. They use a mountain as cover to get as close as possible to the ruins of the prothean colony. T’soni has her face glued to the monitor, looking over the area intently. To her this entire location is a silicon mine. It would be a momentous occasion if the circumstances were different. They _are_ the first council species in recorded history to explore this planet, aside from the _bastard,_ but to him this is just another infiltration op on another foreign planet with new rules and a new environment.

Nissus does some of her signature “dangerous flying,” weaving in and out of tall, ancient and alien buildings that miraculously still stand. Garrus needs to scope out the area in order to properly operate, so he has Nissus take him up to the rooftop of a towering spire and exits the shuttle. Sidnois and T’soni will advance on foot under his instruction. Once he has an idea of the layout he will return to join them.

Garrus sets up his station and surveys the area, looking for any sign of Saren. He immediately spots a number of geth snipers roosting in the upper floors of these vacant towers and ground units on patrol, but not his target. Garrus assumes that he must be inside one of these buildings.

He hears a soft exhale, as if nearby, and shudders at the familiarity of it. He remembers something similar from the asteroid base. After what the obelisk showed him, he does not even find it strange or shocking at this point. It could be a sign that this place is enveloped in a field much like the obelisk was; a field which can communicate with him. The geth activity picks up a bit. The geth snipers begin to pack up their stations and the guards begin to group up and move. He notifies Sidonis and T’soni, who he has been guiding steadily and safely through the streets of this ancient city, to take cover in a charred hovel.

This seems to be a sign that Saren is on the move. Suddenly the reaper descends upon the city, its sheer scale becomes apparent and humbling all at once. Garrus fears that this is it and they are done for, but he receives word from orbit that the geth are bugging out. The fleet is vanishing through the return relay. This makes Garrus even more panicked because it appears that Saren is attempting to leave. He _cannot_ let that happen.

Garrus finally spots the bastard and aches to squeeze the trigger on his linear rifle and splatter him all over the ground. But they need information, and unfortunately they need him alive for that. From this range Garrus can clearly see the that he is a mangled, ugly mess of tubes and cybernetics, much more so than the last time they spotted him. The reaper must be changing him. He hardly counts as a turian anymore.

Despite the monstrosity that bears the former Spectres name, Garrus can still tell that Saren is distraught. From the way he keeps pausing and looking back, Garrus deduces that he is hesitant to leave. Garrus wonders if this place has the same effect on the reaper that the sphere station does, and that the reaper desires to exit as quickly as possible. Saren must have conflicting interests with the reaper, then, because there was obviously something inside he wanted to investigate further.

Garrus marks the building Saren keeps looking towards and commands Sidonis and T’soni begin to advance towards it. He manages the telemetry and tracking data of thirty targets all at once, including his own team, to guide them safely between more geth patrols. He frowns and attempts to devise some kind of distraction that would slow down or incapacitate Saren enough that T’soni could get to him.

But it is no use. Saren boards the reaper and it leaves before Garrus can even exhale. Garrus orders his people in orbit to keep track of where they think they are going. He hopes they can glean something from monitoring the jump but knows that will not matter. Once Saren leaps through the relay there is no way to know where he will turn after that.

He had been _so close_. He growls and cools himself down before doing something stupid and reckless. This area is completely vacant now, no geth or any other adversary present. Nissus scoops him up in the shuttle and drops him with his squad so they can proceed. He is still growling when he meets up with them, earning a nervous look from Sidonis. They enter the building Saren was so interested in to see what all the intrigue was about.

The entryway is ransacked. The walls are scarred from crude attempts with explosives and fusion torches. Clearly Saren was looking for something in here and failed to find it. Garrus feels another breath down his neck and knows this is where he is supposed to be – or perhaps this is what being indoctrinated feels like. One of the heavily dented panels in the wall opens up on its own to reveal a spotless, softly-illuminated, descending pathway. It looks like their presence here is welcomed by whatever system is still active at this site.

“We go,” _this way is correct,_ Garrus orders and starts forward.

“Do you want me to at least check it with a drone?” _please,_ Sidonis asks, sounding hopeful that Garrus will stop and consider a safer option.

“No. That is where we need to go,” _I know it to be true,_ he says confidently and continues to walk. He notices T’soni share a nervous glance with Sidonis. Perhaps he _is_ indoctrinated.

They pass through another cave-like chamber in which another passage opens up, this time in a sheer rock wall. It would have been impossible to see this entryway. After some more cautious walking they enter a perfectly untouched chamber of what look like server racks, all of which still seem to have power.

“Goddess, there is still power here… after thousands, no, tens of thousands of years.”

“The doors didn’t tip you off?” _I am still worried,_ Sidonis replies. Garrus can practically feel T’soni scowling behind him.

Garrus knows he should be looking for something but he does not know what. Perhaps this is information given to him from the obelisk manifesting in his subconscious. His head becomes light as they enter a tall, dimmed room lined to the ceiling with smooth, elliptical pods. A light materializes in the middle of the room which draws their attention. Garrus approaches it and stops a couple feet away, as if about to begin a conversation. He double-checks to make sure all of their visors are recording this.

“Welcome,” he hears a voice. Garrus notices that this voice is, for once, not in his head. His microphone is reading audio.

“Young species, I am Vigil, artificial descendant of Ksad Isahn, the supervisor of this facility. It seems my rendering engine is beyond repair, so my voice and my memories will have to suffice…”

“So is this a playback or is this an actual intelligence,” _unbelievable,_ Garrus turns and asks Sidonis keeping the audio inside their helmets so it does not interrupt the speaker.

“I heard that,” Vigil stops, “I assure you that I am a sapient intelligence – please, I apologize for the monologue but I wanted to make a proper introduction.”

_Of course you are,_ “How is it that a sapient artificial intelligence, trapped in here without external contact for presumably thousands of years-” Garrus starts, but Vigil finishes for him.

“I can speak your language, Archive, because I have been monitoring the communications of your squadron since you arrived. I also learned from the… intruder, who spoke the same language.”

“What if I do not believe you?” _because I still don’t,_ Garrus challenges, although it does seem likely that the protheans would be capable of such a thing.

“Believe me, Archive. The obelisk also altered your mind slightly… to make you and your companion here, the Conduit, easier to interface with. Where has the venerable Cipher gone?”

Garrus has trouble remembering what the code word refers to. It is vague and he should know the answer but it floats just out of reach. T’soni has no trouble, however.

“That reaper outside _murdered_ her,” she says angrily.

“Dreadful news,” Vigil flickers, “the programming of that structure was not my area of expertise, another team was working on it when they… left. I cannot help you there. But I can tell you my purpose and offer as much guidance as possible in the moments I have left… which may be several of your ‘standard hours.’ I am on the last of my power, and once that runs out my data centers will wipe themselves clean.”

“Poor design,” _stupid choice, advanced indeed,_ Sidnois mutters under his breath. Garrus is not sure whether to reprimand or to chuckle. Vigil does not offer Sidonis a reply.

Vigil proceeds to explain why this facility was constructed and confirm everything they theorized about the reapers and indoctrination. He also provides useful coordinates of other defunct sites and data regarding the sphere station, or at least what he knows about it.

This will have to convince the council. Now they have a prothean AI telling them directly about the cycle pattern and fifty thousand year harvesting cycle. This is a first-hand account of Garrus’ visions from the obelisk. It really helps to have T’soni present because she has all sorts of other questions to ask that confirm that this AI is truly prothean and not some post-hoc or fallacious implement. Sidonis also helps immensely by supplying Vigil with transfer protocols to smoothly communicate several exabytes worth of precious data over to their on-board cluster. Garrus is still sore about letting Saren go, but this new information is enough to keep him occupied and distracted for the time being.

They leave before Vigil powers itself down. Of course, two cycles later the council impresses him once more with their sheer ignorance and denial of pure evidence.

“We know Vigil was not lying to us!” _are you sane?_ he shouts angrily, finally losing his temper with the councilors, “Vigil confirmed _all_ of our evidence and then some – he could not have made up that information on the spot. Electrons are not fast enough to make it possible to invent several hundred exabytes worth of consistent, valid data on demand!” _you imbeciles!_

_Commander,_ Sparatus warns, subvocally.

“Commander Vakarian, these were clearly geth ships,” the asari councilor coos condescendingly, as if she knows better, “we have said this before and we will say it again: the geth problem is not under our jurisdiction. And as long as they are outside of council space, we cannot uphold council law against them. This story about the reapers is no more than a fallacy that you seem intent on pushing on us.”

_Unbelievable!_ “Spirits, okay! Alright! But do not hold us accountable when your people are _burning_ ,” _they will,_ he cuts the connection.

_Spirits above!_ “Fuck!” he shouts, resorting to a human curse word that seemed to be quite popular with Shepard. He is not one to curse, even when angry, but there is dense… and then there is neutron star dense. These councilors are effectively condemning their people through their own inaction and denial. He keeps that glimmer of hope, the last one he seems to have, from fizzling out. The turian people will be somewhat prepared for this invasion when it occurs. They may be the only ones left if they ever claim victory.

After that it is over. Their hunt for evidence has run out of all leads despite Vigil’s data stores. The other sites he recommended are all degraded. Of course, they never stop looking for more information but it runs out either way.

The protheans put a great deal of effort into ensuring that the next cycle would be well-informed about the reapers so they could have a fighting chance _before_ the invasion started. The protheans could not have predicted that their words would fall on a primarily-deaf galactic community. The momentum of their mission vanishes as they enter a period of uncertainty. Special Forces is directing operations behind the scenes, but the rest of the turian public should know and prepare.

They return to their other objectives, and after another year of chasing ghosts they are no closer to finding out why those colonies disappeared and where that reaper could have gone.

Garrus still thinks about Shepard every day. He finally decides to watch that video he has kept untouched: Lia’s words to him.

He should have known he would not make it far without keening. It hurts to think about what he denied her. It hurts to realize that he might never be able to let her go after she sank so far into his skin, bones, and mind. He does not speak with anyone for an entire cycle after watching the video once and deleting it immediately. Sidonis finds him late in the cycle and speaks softly to him without forming any words that Garrus can understand, but he is grateful for the support and even more grateful for Sidonis’ discretion.

His team has long since been re-purposed to other missions and T’soni has been dropped on the Citadel to work on other projects. He has given up at this point anyway. Their vanishing leads and the lack of geth attacks meant terminating the mission due to lack of proper impetus. He still insists that they cannot just forget that the reapers will return as they have for millions of years and thousands of advanced civilizations.

Command still believes him, but they still refuse to tell anyone about the actual reason for their fortifications. They have to feed false information to everyone outside of command, including the Primarch, as to why their war machine is spinning at full force. The fleet that command has been building up over the past year has not gone unnoticed by the council governments. It has reached a point where turians have come under political scrutiny as the other species try to figure out why the turians look like they are preparing to go to war.

Garrus’ team has now been relegated to reconnaissance and the occasional raid. It is like being back in his training days all over again – only he is his own superior. The increased political tension seems to have reminded the krogan that they should hate turians again. Turian colonies are facing an increased frequency of attacks from mercenary groups comprised almost entirely of krogan.

Garrus’ team has been thwarting these raids and misplaced attempts at occupation as discreetly as possible, all while trying to minimize turian casualties. At this point he could really care less about how many krogan he kills in the process, they have all become the same worthless raider to him. He has not encountered any that he has found to be particularly redeeming. Where are their artists, their musicians, their orators, their _saviors?_ Surely they must be _somewhere._ He knows he has a bias because he only deals with the worst of the krogan, but the weight of it is clawing at his ability to remain optimistic.

Perhaps he is xenophobic, but no amount of tolerance on his end will stop the krogan from doing terrible things to innocent turians on the colonies they target.

At least it is predictable work. His squad finally get to demonstrate their full destructive force when brought against an enemy bound by well-understood rules of engagement. Garrus does not like the symbolism of fighting the krogan, but he does so because he hates seeing his fellow turians suffer “because the krogan don’t like them.”

It starts to occur to Garrus that the attacks seem to target what might actually constitute strategic positions. Those outer colonies, most of which are agricultural or mining, are rich with raw resources. Perhaps the krogan have an indoctrinated leader, or all of them are indoctrinated. With the turian task forces at full mobilization, a lack of proper resources puts a strain on their supply lines.

Sometimes a raid will occur on a human colony or an asari colony, and his team responds because they are wired into the emergency channels. These are many orders of magnitude worse.

_Many orders of magnitude._

Human and asari civilians are not trained for combat and they almost always lack adequate defenses because their governments care very little about fringe colonies. The asari tend to have a minor advantage with more defensive systems and natural biotics, but the krogan will blow through any attempts and do the most abominable things to innocent people _for fun,_ the least-atrocious of which include rape and murder. He loses and more and more faith in the sapient redeemability of the krogan with every passing mission.

He decides they need to stop subjecting themselves to this trauma and accepts an exfiltration assignment instead. Their task is to grab a salarian scientist who has been reportedly working independently on a cure for the genophage. They know this because one of their old research outposts was recently sold to an STG frontman to be repurposed and refurbished. The Hierarchy made no effort to clean up the surveillance bugs, but the STG made short work of most of them; they were not quite thorough-enough. So, by sheer chance, they know the base is being used as a testing facility where this mad salarian scientist is working with _live krogan_ on a cure.

The genophage has been a topic of heated debate, especially in recent years as humanity shook up the political landscape. Garrus thinks it is wrong to have dealt with the problem in such a way, but at the same time he cannot deny the biological truth of how invasive species work. He cannot empathize with the turians who devised the plan either, but assumes they felt it was the only way to stop an otherwise indomitable force.

A full cure to the genophage, especially now with all the krogan riled up, would definitely result in another pointless war. A compromise is required; they do not want a repeat of the previous krogan expansion and subsequent self-collapse. They cannot afford to lose millions of lives because the krogan lack the ethical capacity to stop themselves from plowing an asteroid into a turian colony world.

Still, this is not about retribution or a struggle between species – this is about finding a solution to a problem that benefits the galactic community at large. He feels obligated to take this into his own hands before Command can stop him from doing what is right. They will speak to this salarian scientist and see if they can negotiate.

They find him: Mordin Solus. He is _not_ happy to see a Blackwatch reconnaissance team here at his facility so soon. He aims a sidearm at this team as they approach but he does not fire.

“Who is this?” he lowers the gun and narrows his eyes.

_Allies?_ “We’re here to talk,” Garrus replies as he approaches.

“Why here so soon? Bugs? Must have missed one. My hastiness. Know of my work then? Does not bode well.”

He is just as twitchy and neurotic as Garrus expects him to be based on descriptions and anecdotes from his previous colleagues. Clearly he is a little insane, as most creatures of his intelligence tend to be.

“What is going on, Doctor Solus?” a deep, warm female voice projects from the room behind their target. A krogan – a _female_ krogan – appears in the doorway and pauses as she eyes him and his team.

“I was not aware we were expecting company,” she rumbles, sounding irritated, “remove your helm, please, so that we may speak face-to-face.”

Garrus pulls off his helmet and stows it at his hip.

“Are you here to kill me?” she asks, entirely unafraid of his group of killers.

_Of course not,_ “We are here to negotiate.”

“Negotiate what?”

“Eve,” Solus begins, but she cuts him off by laying a massive hand on his shoulder.

_How should I say,_ “We are looking to compromise on your research project, Solus.”

Eve growls, “don’t make me tear you limb from limb, _turian_ , for suggesting that my people do not deserve full retribution for what you did to them!” she growls. He stares her down.

“Against the will of superiors, I am offering safe passage and a promise that you will consider what I have to say. I know that I cannot fully empathize with you, Matriarch, but half of your ‘retribution’ must be demanded of your own people. We are not our predecessors. We don’t have your perspective. But understand that I have felt fury,” _the amorality, the desecration_ he growls, “witnessing krogan raiders mercilessly raze innocent colonies in ‘retaliation,’ and rape, torture, and murder innocent men, women, and children of all species… including _other krogan,_ ” _their own brethren._

He raises his voice before she can reply, _listen!_ “And don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to watch us all burn if we swept through one of your settlements and murdered your children, bondmates, brothers, and sisters just because we wanted to settle there, or because we ‘think of you as inferior.’ Or if we slammed asteroids into your colony worlds, leaving them barren, ruining them forever.”

“Do not insinuate that we are uncivilized animals – and do not group me those of us who are filthy, base, mercenary-gang, _cretins,_ ” she spits the word, “The krogan are proud. The krogan are not as you describe, turian! My sisters are doctors and biological researchers. My only living child, my son, is a poet. My mate was a linguist before he…” she scowls.

_Before…_ “Before he what?” he raises his brows.

She huffs indignantly but does not supply with him with an answer.

_I need your help,_ “The genophage is wrong, but give us a chance to fix it in a way that benefits _your people._ ”

“Tell me then, o righteous and knowledgeable turian,” she rolls her eyes, “how could giving us a halfway-realized bastardization of a cure possibly benefit _my people?_ ” she bites out sarcastically.

“Do you know what an invasive species does, Matriarch?” he shifts his gaze over to Solus, who should know all about this, “First it overpopulates, then it over-consumes and all of its sustenance disappears… then it _dies_. The Krogan Rebellion started because of territorial disputes on the Krogan colony worlds when they ran out of resources. Those colony worlds suffered immensely from overcrowding and then over ninety percent of their populace perished from famine and turf wars.”

“I am aware of what happened!” she snaps, “I was _present_ for it. Do not degrade my people, we are not an _invasive species_ ,” she gets up in his face, “our people have suffered _enough_ for what yours and Doctor Solus’ people did. How many lives have you ended with your genophage, turian?”

She is intelligent; a lawyer and a leader. He has a feeling that she is testing his resolve because there is no way she does not already acknowledge what he is attempting to tell her.

Garrus reels back and slams his forehead into hers. She steps back, stunned.

“Do you want to halve the grains here? We can go back and forth all day about blame and folly. Do you know what _my_ people suffered as a result of _your_ people’s ‘expansion’ efforts? The krogan killed several hundred thousand turians in armed conflict leading up to the _Ansar Extinction,_ an event which took two hundred and thirty-two _million_ turian lives in _several days_. ‘Your people’ destroyed an entire culture without remorse. Following that, the krogan have been responsible for several thousand turian fatalities _every year_ from raids and attacks. Turians do not procreate quickly – to this day the krogan have lost fewer lives to the genophage than they _ever_ paid for in blood. You lose more krogan to other krogan than you do to stillbirths. So do you want what is best for you people or do you just want _revenge_?”

The female stares at him with a mixture of shock and fury. But she does not step back up to challenge him again as the thinks about it. Garrus wants her support and he wants to give the krogan a chance to prove themselves, but they cannot do that if they have the exact same issue as before.

“Hell, _humans_ are an invasive species and they have nearly the same population growth rate as the krogan do _right now_ ,” he continues to glare at her, willing her to see reason, “they have had issues with overpopulation before and it created some of the worst living conditions imaginable. Sections of Earth are still slums because the problem is still there. Is that the future you want for your people? To have half your species trapped in poverty, enslaved by the other half? To have one clan reduce another to animals? To be seen as an unstoppable threat again? Because when that happens it will not be the turians who stop you… it will be someone else, and they will come up with something many times worse than the genophage.”

Eve is still furious with him, but she accepts his arguments with a spiteful glare. She also has to back down because talks with a gun in his hand, and an orbital cannon aimed straight for this facility. Mordin is not too happy about it either.

“Threats will not work turian,” Solus speaks, sounding tense, “genophage cure bigger than petty violence. Minor obstacle before a much greater problem,” Eve looks a little too satisfied that Solus has risen to her defense.

“Solus…” _missing the point,_ Garrus does not want to have to argue with him, “I was sent in to stop you from working on this altogether. I am trying to give you a chance to make things right. We are also facing a much bigger galactic threat right now; the same thing that happened with the protheans is about to happen to us. If there is no unity, there will be no point to curing the genophage anyway.”

“Crazy turian. Cannot use lies to derail my research.”

_Listen to reason,_ he snorts, “Would you like to examine evidence, Solus? We have exabytes upon exabytes of it to prove the existence of the reapers.”

Solus snorts, “Just a legend. Not a real threat.”

“The _reapers_?” Eve cuts in, recognizing the name, “That’s a legend we used to tell our pups. That’s _made up._ you really are insane. I can’t believe I almost fell for your _tact._ ”

Garrus growls in frustration.

_Do not deny,_ “And what would it take, then, to prove it to you? Matriarch Benezia confirmed their existence. We spoke with a prothean AI _on Ilos_ that confirmed their existence. We have an endless supply of evidence! A reaper _killed my mate_!” _aiva! Li’a!_

There, he finally says it.

His entire squad shifts nervously behind him. Eve hums in recognition, as if she can sense that he is incomplete.

“You are not lying,” her brow furrows.

“This is all documented,” _I can show you,_ he says after he has cooled off a bit. He really does need to work on his temper, which seems to be very loose as of late.

“Give it to me,” the salarian says finally.

Garrus hands him what he would call a _press release:_ documented data with key elements obfuscated for security reasons. Solus instantly notices the redacted items.

“A lot missing,” he is clearly bothered by it.

“Once I trust you, doctor,” _soon perhaps, not yet,_ Garrus growls, “you will see everything.”

The salarian looks back and forth between the krogan Matriarch and Garrus.

“Will speak about this later,” he finally concludes. Eve huffs in displeasure, but ultimately the doctor has the control here.

“I am putting my faith in your word, Commander. I am angry… because I understand truth in your words. I read of these raids and it makes me sick to my stomachs to think that my brothers and sisters could so such horrendous things. I have thought about these things and they keep me awake at night. I have connections within Clan Urdnot who can help start the movement towards unity. Once I have gathered my thoughts I will speak with you again,” the matriarch says carefully. Garrus nods and hands over his personal information.

He has hopes that the krogan can become an ally during the upcoming war and then secure a proper, stable future for themselves following it.


	25. Chapter 25

They are only moments from waking up Lanaai. After checking everything over many times they feel confident that they can raise her. They have her in a sterile, extremely low-gravity environment to keep the pull of gravity itself from feeling overwhelming, especially since her muscles will be very weak. The therapist and mentor they found for her, Cassia Solarus, is in the room with her to handle any potential complications.

They lift the sedative and apply a “kick” to jump start her higher-level mental functions, the very same ones that grant her sapience. Lanaai Acronus slowly begins to come to. Her heart races. They are about ready to slam her with sedatives again when her eyes snap open. She sucks in a deep breath of air and looks around, gasping. Litha has to grab Vorik’s wrist to stop him from aborting the process.

Solarus croons gently to calm down the newly-awoken being. After a short time Lanaai stills and her vitals return to normal. She cannot quite move her limbs yet, but she is able to move her eyes and head. She looks all around and then seems to pause, confused. They can hear her trilling: _confused_. Something has clearly worked, but they do not know the complete state of her senses.

Solarus supports Lanaai’s head and back, allowing her to sit up. She continues to look around, at herself and at her helper, and her pupils contract as they react to stimulus. So her vision is already working, which is a damn miracle. They expected her to be blind for several cycles while her mind worked out the optical stream.

To their surprise, she starts to keen out in joy and laughs hoarsely. Solarus sighs in relief. This seems to be proceeding better than expected, which is all they can ask for. Lanaai’s mandibles are already flared out in a smile.

She cannot talk and she cannot move her limbs yet, but she is _alive._ Solarus cannot help but laugh along with her. She did not believe Vorik when he told her more about this project after she agreed to it. But the more she watched Litha and Ki’Senthamus work, the more she came to understand what they were doing and why it is a miracle of modern science. She strongly disagrees with the lack of ethical process that inspired them to bring someone back from the dead, especially as a different species, but damned if it is not truly beautiful to witness the reaction of someone with a second chance – possibly the second chance they always _needed_.

* * *

Lanaai cannot believe it. She vaguely understands what is going on here and refuses to believe that her senses are giving her accurate information. She remembers everything up until the bitter end, and it feels amazing to fill her lungs with air once again. She also remembers heat and fire, pain in her chest and abdomen; _that_ does not seem right to her.

But here she is: _alive,_ supported in the arms of a turian, surrounded by turians.

She _is_ turian.

**_Why?_ **

She can tell that this is her own body when she looks down upon, because her head is definitely attached to it. She imagined what this might be like so often and here she is. Maybe, finally, she will have the chance she always wished for.

Who did this to her?

She does not even really think to question why it is this is happening, simply because her mind is undergoing a bombardment of sensory information. Smells, sights, a weird buzzing in her crest that allows her to feel someone else’s proximity and practically read their actions.

She had been ready to die. She made peace with it. She is grateful, to an extent that cannot be described properly with words, to Garrus for being there as she repented for the love she always hid from him. And now she is grateful that she has a second chance to make things right. She is a new being; perhaps she is the person she has always wanted to be and the person that others saw in her. “You would’ve made a good turian,” they said. Now she can prove them right. She is finally content with herself, even if just for now, before she allows the rest of reality settle in and understands that this is _not_ just a dream.

* * *

He worries when he does not hear back from Eve for several cycles. Her conviction and her motivation were both completely tangible when speaking with her, so he would have expected a follow-up by now. Garrus composes a message to her almost pleading for prompt correspondence. Communications with Solus are impossible because he does not trust the Salarian enough to hand his omni-id over to him, ironically, despite readily providing it to Matriarch Eve.

Eve finally sends a message: she asks for assistance, heavily implying that she does not have much time. He halts their current course and turns them around immediately.

Someone must have intercepted comms between Eve and her contacts on Tuchanka and sent mercenaries to investigate. No clear motivation for the attack can be ascertained and there is no way the raiders should have determined the location of this station without professional intervention. Garrus arrives there to find Mordin livid – more so than he thought possible for a salarian. He quickly learns why: _clan rivalry._ “Urdnot” carries an infamous name and these krogan were out for blood.

Eve stood up to defend Solus and deter the attackers, but she was fatally wounded and died not long after the security mechs could finish them off. Solus had not been fast-enough to save her, and she was already quite vulnerable from the experiments to which she was donating blood and tissue samples.

Garrus bristles. She was a potential leader for her people and this seems to be their way of acknowledging that it did not matter what she said. Diplomacy was not on their minds. Mordin packs up his things and comes with them because he has nowhere else to go and he wants to keep his mind off this tragedy. His mind needs go elsewhere right now, and Garrus empathizes with him. His skills and experience will be useful in their fight against the reapers. Progress on the genophage cure halts there.

Several cycles later a report rolls in about another lost colony, and this time the report contains substantially more detail than they are used to. The colonists managed to get out some information before going dark. Garrus has not forgotten the previous incidents, but they were over year ago. Now it seems that predatory silence has returned to descending upon colonies once more.

They warn of the “swarm” and “paralysis.” The message looks to be hastily typed, like in that moment the user behind the keyboard was freezing up. Garrus’ blood turns to ice.

It is a human colony this time, but a turian colony could be next, especially because it is within a co-mediated Hierarchy-Alliance cluster. How long do they have before Bridge, his _home,_ is taken? They clear half the galaxy at record speed to reach it as fast as they possibly can. When they arrive they spot this massive mangled structure of rocks and wires hanging in the atmosphere, visible even from low orbit. This is clearly their culprit. It would certainly be hard to miss, but when no one is left to speak of it, it may as well not exist at all.

As they scan their LZ and generate a plan of action, an unmarked but clearly human craft arrives and barrels right down there without any hesitation or acknowledgment. Garrus needs his team to get down there now to check it out, so they drop in as fast as possible, following the unmarked craft.

Nissus executes a perfect suicide burn as the ground rushes up to meet them. Once they alight, they clear the area and look for whomever the other craft dropped off. He takes his entire squad to the ground with him to minimize the risk of an ambush. Sidonis and Lo’kian stay with him while Tara and Kaepler push ahead to scout.

He notices this colony is just like the others were: no sign of struggle. But the ground is practically still warm from the people who used to be here, and he can smell their lingering scents. They encounter several vehicles left unlocked, still on idle. Garrus spots something in the ground, though.

It is a bug; an ugly, unnatural bug and it certainly does not belong here. Sidonis scans it only to find that there are no logs in any available database which recognize it. They are incredibly dubious that they have miraculously discovered a new species of insect on a human colony which has been settled for five years now.

Tara and Kaepler report in and patch through the humans on the ground, who also happen to be looking into this incident and demand to know why they are here.

“This is a human colony, you have no right to invade our territory and investigate,” the female voice sounds familiar, but she is using a vocal obfuscator.

“This colony is within arms’ reach of a turian colony world and we do have partial jurisdiction over this space. Technically we share this cluster,” _don’t lecture me on regulations._ “This issue is not new and we are worried that this threat will spread. It seems like it has before,” he says as he walks towards where Focos and Quo’an are stationed.

He reaches the group of humans, _for the good of the many,_ “this problem deserves to be looked into, and the more eyes and minds we have working on it, the more likely we can end it.”

There is an awkward pause before the human on the left takes off her helmet. Garrus is both shocked and not shocked to see none other than Ashley Williams.

“Vakarian?” She asks towards him. That is a very sound guess considering his armor is completely different and he carries different equipment than he did on the _Nocveus_. This is a woman who started out unable to tell the difference between turians who can now recognize him based on his movement and his choice of words. Shepard changed them all.

He takes off his helmet and greets her. He assumes the other human is Alenko by height and posture, but his helmet stays on. Williams makes a motion across her throat and points to her helmet. Garrus understands what she wants and turns his recording devices off. He orders his people to move towards their next objective and takes a walk with her, catching up on what the Alliance has them working on.

“I never thought I’d say this, but you are a sight for sore eyes, Vakarian. The Alliance stepped all over Shepard’s requests and silenced anyone who worked with her. I’m lucky that they even allowed me to keep working with Alenko and Joker.”

“But they still have you looking into the missing colonists?” _a Sisyphean task?_

“Command wrongly assumed that sending us on a wild goose chase would keep us out of the way… because I’m sure they don’t expect to find anything. But it looks like that is going to change today.”

“Limited success so far, I assume?” _like us._

“That’s right. Whatever takes them is too fast for us,” she glares at the giant mangled mess hanging nearby the colony.

_Same,_ “I know.”

“I can see why Shepard was so disillusioned with the Alliance… I grew up in a military family and I trusted the Alliance, but now I’m not so sure. I’m here because they refuse to acknowledge our evidence and they want to keep us from making a scene. To them the reapers pose no threat and merit no response.”

_Dont’ make me furious,_ Garrus growls.

Williams stops and holds eye contact, “I know denial when I see it. Unfortunately, I have to do this because it is what Shepard would have wanted… any chance to right by her is a good one.”

Garrus’ chest puffs out hearing such praise of his Lia.

Garrus is hesitant to tell her about what he has learned throughout these two years, but he trusts her. He knows she is one of the rare warriors who will guard that trust to her death.

_We’ve had better luck,_ “Blackwatch is listening to us. The expansion of the grand fleet that’s making headlines now is in preparation for the invasion.”

“You’re kidding,” Williams drops her arms and looks at him agape.

_I’m serious,_ “I’m serious.”

“Fuck,” she curses under her breath, “It’s not fucking fair,” she sighs, “I don’t want humanity to die because we are too stubborn to invest in our own future.”

_I can’t help you,_ “I’m sorry,” is the best he can reply.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t be complaining. It is what it is.”

_Let me attempt to help,_ “I have wind for your wings, Ash. We collected more evidence… damning evidence. I don’t have enough time right now to explain everything, but I will provide you with our reports and our data. I hope it helps,” _I really do._

Williams looks away and curses again, “Christ. I’m glad I know you, Garrus.”

_Likewise,_ he trills, “So that thing,” he points towards the stationary craft in the distance.

“Definitely to blame for the disappearances,” she eyes the craft nervously, “I don’t like our chances of tangling with it.”

_Too risky, I agree,_ “Yeah, and any damage could risk the lives of thousands of innocents on board. We have very few options. I expect an infiltration operation will be required if we can get close enough,” _and survive._

“But then what? If that fucker jumps then we’d be stranded aboard it.”

_Be optimistic,_ he snorts, “I think we could take’em. It'll be just like old times.”

Williams smiles, but only for a moment. The harsh reality of this scenario is that their respective governments will not be able to send reinforcements in time to detain this craft. The best they can do is figure out how the colonists were taken so that they may be able to stop another incident like this from occurring. The message they intercepted mentioned "swarm" and "paralysis," so to him it seems obvious that the bugs have been employed as a bioweapon.

And he knows, even though there is no evidence at the moment, that whoever is crewing that abomination of a ship – be it synthetic or organic – is either working for or with the reapers. His visions indicated this stage: just before the harvest, the reapers “sample” the populace and determine if the time is “right.”

Williams does not have much to say because she has not seen what he has, but she does the most important thing anyone could do right now: she listens to him and takes him seriously. She promises to take whatever action she can based on the information he supplied her. They agree before they split up to share any data they skim off this colony. Garrus sighs in frustration up at the massive structure floating there, taunting them with its presence.

A pressure wave passes along his fringes, which raise in anticipation. The structure decides now is the time to leave. The field disturbance behind it as it leaves is powerful-enough to punch a crater into the ground and send a massive seismic shockwave their way. Garrus grabs Williams and uses his body to shield her from the voluminous gust of wind.

The ground drops away from them but he continues to hold on. His emergency inertial dampeners kick in and break their fall, albeit a little violently. It would have been worse if she had fallen on her own as her armor lacks any form of kinetic dampening; typical Alliance stinginess. They used to joke about that, but now he no longer finds it funny. She dusts herself off and thanks him, swearing under her breath.

“Tell Joker I said ‘hi,’” _for me,_ Garrus says over his shoulder as they leave.

Williams snorts, “Will do, Vakarian.”

Nissus picks them both up out of the small ravine formed by the shockwave. Williams departs and heads to a rendezvous with her own team.

They review their findings back on the _Ketos_. The colony’s perimeter cameras conveniently cut out nice and early from EM interference, and other monitoring systems lost connection soon after. They have one piece of relevant video evidence from an extremely distant remote surveillance camera. It is their lucky break. The video confirms the arrival of the massive craft and the subsequent swarm emanating from it. After a while, what must be hundreds of transport pods exit the large rocky craft, accompanied by chitinous, ghoulish bipeds. The _collectors;_ another legend becomes a reality.

These events occurred maybe four hours before they arrived. The process itself only lasted a couple of hours. Four and a half hours to extract an _entire colony_.

So now they have two vendettas to settle: this “Collector,” as his crew codenames the craft and its crew, and the reaper.

* * *

She should be furious that her second chance is someone else’s project; someone’s whimsy. She should be begging them to end this experiment and put her back into the peaceful void of death as fate intended. She cannot forgive them for bringing her back like this, but she also cannot stop herself from feeling exalted by what she has now. She dreamed of waking up like this, and this is no dream.

Lanaai finds herself quickly adapting to life in a turian body. She always imagined what it might be like and this is honestly not that far off. It seems that growing up around turians prepared her well for this, even though she blames it for the inferiority complex that plagued Shepard. Distinctly turian behaviors begin to express themselves after a lifetime of absorbing them in to her subconscious… but there seems to be something in her mind reacting to the inputs and helping her along, something unrecognizable. There is something she has not been told.

It is the physical therapy which takes longer than she would like, and it is frustrating when her own limbs refuse to cooperate most of the time. Fortunately, Cassia is a patient and knowledgeable woman who counterbalances her own angry and impatient attitude. After just three sections in therapy, Lanaai is already speaking with her vocals and subvocals. She makes it a point not to speak any English. Shepard is dead. She is leaving that shell behind; it did not adequately represent who she was.

One section later she is already able to walk around and tend to herself, but it will be a while before she can put her full knowledge of martial arts to use again. Currently she works with Solarus on tai-chi style movement exercises to focus on smooth, targeted control and balance. But… she also feels something tugging at the back of her throat and abdomen, like an itch that scratching cannot relieve or a dryness that drinking water will not clear. She thinks she knows what it is but does not want to have to deal with it yet. She knew it would happen but she does not want it to be this way. Some turians find great pleasure inside another, and some find rutting to be a chore and a biological obligation. She understands Garrus. She _understands._

She finally admits defeat and cannot take it any longer. The itch has now become this burning ache and she needs relief immediately. Ki’Senthamus just happens to be checking up on her when she initiates, to her own surprise. He reciprocates her offer without any words or resistance. It is an exchange of pheromones and a subharmonic buzz in ascent.

_A rut?_ she asks simply to which he nods.

_Certainly._

It breaks her heart that it is not Garrus, it really does, but she cannot focus otherwise. The apprehension that she expected is not present, and she realizes after removing the last of her garments that she is more confused than anything.

Ki’Senthamus is a very handsome φ: a slender build with alluring, gentle proportions and smooth, onyx plates. It is not challenging for her to feel aroused and ready as she surveys her partner. He is tentative, remaining very careful with her because this is her introduction to turian practice. His tail is beautifully ridged but not too thick, so he slides into her with little resistance. Her own tail wraps around his and squeezes, drawing him in as far as possible. When he is finally sheathed inside her, all she wants is for him to do is hurry up and give her what she needs. She snarls at him and he obliges.

The relief feels wonderful in the way a glass of cold water feels wonderful after heavy exercise. Oh how she enjoys feeling his ridges and platelets scrape across her nerve endings with each thrust. She allows him to bend her into whichever shape he desires and feed relief to her. She finds satiation from the experience and thanks him. He nods sharply and immediately leaves, and she is glad to see him go. He is a bit of a grating individual and she does not care much for him.

She is still affected by it, however. She still feels ashamed – what would Garrus say if he knew that she has not been faithful to him? It is the human part of her thinking and it knows what she has done; the human part which she must burn. The rest of her, the turian part, does not care in the slightest. When she sees Ki’Senthamus the next cycle in the small cafeteria she feels the same guarded disdain she usually does when he is around.

In that moment she truly understands the feeling, or lack thereof, involved with a rut between turians. It took _being turian_ to understand. It is just so much more non-attached than she could possibly have imagined. Shepard was always an “attached” person, but even now Lanaai does not feel it. Ki’Senthamus also treats her with his usual slightly-condescending and dismissive attitude, reinforcing the meaninglessness of it. She has to take time to wrap her head around it and stomach the regret that it would really have been that easy to begin with Garrus.

In the meantime she learns more about what is going on with “Alpheos,” the name of the contract which brought her back. Of course it is a power-play and rooted in military advantage, because it always is; that is where the funding comes from. Any scientific motivation behind this project is beneficial, but it would never have convinced their benefactors. She cannot point fingers and blame one person in particular, but after adjusting to reality for several cycles she can no longer convince herself to care. She does not _feel_ like property here as she did when she reported to the Alliance. Whether or not that is really the case remains to be seen.

The Hierarchy will give her work and value and she will do what they ask of her because she has always driven to please others. Her fear of disappointing her peers is still with her, and she may never be able to cast it away. At the very least, they are going to let her go back to searching for the reaper threat.

Two years is quite some time.

Colonies are going dark again, and not just human ones. By now, at least one colony from every council specie has gone missing. The ensuing investigations found no survivors or signs of struggle. An entire quarian liveship has also vanished. Tensions are running higher because people are beginning to play the blame game, but Lanaai knows better. She and Garrus talked about this phenomenon: it is how the reapers soften up the controlling powers and destabilize whatever peace there might be.

She does not experience the conflict of identity she half-expected she would, because her time spent around turians built her like one. All she has to do is shrug off the baggage that her humanity laid upon her. She has several more sections to accomplish that, even if such a thing is much easier said than done. As for her affiliation with what is, by definition, a terrorist cell, she knows to be wary. Someone chose to violate her when they scavenged whatever was left of her body. This new identity of hers, this “Lanaai Acronus,” has to be from a real person… there is simply no way they could make up so much in so little time.

That turns out to be hauntingly true.

She is informed that she has been provided someone else’s memories through a greybox wired into her neural harness. Every word uttered reminds her that she was _built._ She is not meant to exist. She is unnatural. She bears the existential crisis because she knows how to handle it. Lanaai Acronus was a real woman with a real history.

An “identity transplant” they call it. Who is she, really?

They have covered her assumed identity at length, because she will need to be able to recite it when prompted, but right now any real memories remain obfuscated. When they ask her if she can remember her parents, she has to perform mental acrobatics to recall the images of the turians she memorized. Sometimes they ask about the “ _monument,_ ” about which she never has answers. It simply does not conjure up any visions or spark feelings of recognition. And yet, whenever they ask, they always seem so expectant and hopeful that she will have something to say to them. Litha told her not to dig – that the memories of someone else will come to her – but she wants to if it means she will produce something useful.

Her primary doctor, Kel Litha… something is horribly wrong with her. Her lack of a moral compass is a serious red flag, but Lanaai traces all of Litha’s obsessions and problems back to a troubled childhood that she gleans from conversations with Director Vorik and Cassia. Like most criminals, she is a victim of circumstance and product of negativity. Litha’s way of battling her internal demons is by trying to defy the universe that surrounds her. Litha is so driven that she is willing to throw standard ethics to the wayside if there is a justifiable and objective path to the goal. There is something so impossibly alluring about the notion of conquering death itself.

Lanaai understands what that feels like. She hates to admit it to herself, but Lanaai is keenly aware that if Garrus died and the only way to get him back was to place him into a different body… she would take it.

They will defeat the reapers – it will be so much easier than nullifying the one thing that defines the meaning of life.

Her mentor, Cassia Solarus, has everything together. She has the rare ability to read people perfectly, which puts Lanaai on the defensive. Lanaai wonders what puts her in balance. Solarus’ apparent lack of major flaws is concerning to Lanaai, who cannot fully trust her because of it. Maybe it could be possible that Solarus is just the one turian who is so competent at masking her flaws that no one will ever find them. She cannot imagine that the people helping her recover could ever be considered “ordinary.”

Lanaai still takes her seriously, but therapy feels too invasive and unnecessary, representing time lost that she would rather spend gaining back her physical potential. She gets the feeling that Solarus figured out that Shepard was depressed and is now trying to overcorrect on this new manifestation. Lanaai is already content with the state of her mind, feeling little to none of the weight she remembers. She may be an abomination, but she is hopeful. She is _happy._

They still have no actual news or reports of reapers.

Currently, the plans for her are to complete physical therapy and then get her out into the field again to resume her hunt. They keep alluding to giving her a crew with experience on this issue, which she takes to mean Garrus and his squad; the _only_ crew with experience regarding the reaper. Lanaai’s former crew are all gone… Visai Quo’an – Kaepler’s sister, Lusan Vakarian – Garrus’ Cousin, Riktel Ameks, Delaai Indomina.

It gets her heart pounding to think about having more time than she deserves with him. They have so much lost time to make up… she has a _chance._ But realistically, she knows he has moved on. It would be terrible news if he kept waiting for a dead woman. She prepared herself for the day when she would learn of some other female in his arms, someone else who can make him happy, knowing nothing would make it any less painful. She can never tell him either, because he would never believe it. Lanaai would certainly disbelieve any madman who claimed to be Garrus after she watched him die. People _cannot_ be brought back from the dead, Shepard included.

If he can move on then so can she. Her moping about is interrupted when they receive news from command that new evidence of the reaper threat has come through from one of their recon teams. They have figured out what is causing the disappearances of the colonies with a direct encounter. It is time for her to go to work.

They do not know how many of these craft there are, but they know how the it can abduct an entire colony at once. The turians immediately issue a fortification clause to all of their exterior colonies and begin to mobilize reinforcement fleets. Lanaai is finally hopeful that they have a lead they can track.


	26. Chapter 26

Catching the Collector was another one-off incident, but it was enough to convince Command of the tangibility of the threat, and react accordingly. Whether or not Williams was successful on her end remains to be seen, and so far no other government has shown any signs of ramping up fleet production with their respective navies. It is possible that the Alliance has begun scaling and no one has noticed, but Garrus does not imagine that it would improve the political landscape in the slightest once found out.

They return to the colony a couple cycles later upon Solus’ request. The emptiness of it is no less unsettling than it ever was, even after cleanup crews made their way through in preparation for new settlers. They have to put forth quite an effort to search for any remaining bugs for Solus to sample. He thinks he can generate a deterrent or a pesticide using their biological material and traces of the paralysis agent. Solus also notices several key details that Garrus’ team missed: Non-native fungus has begun to spring up in some places, a detail so minute that only a professional biologist could have spotted it. Mordin also manages to detect incredibly minute traces of non-native, high-order DNA.

Solus’ investigations on the foreign DNA has him scratching his horns.

“Archaic. Resembles nothing modern. Artificial tampering evident,” he turns to face Garrus as he enters the auxiliary room in their medical wing.

 _What?_ “Not even a hello, Solus?” Garrus replies.

“Ah yes, niceties. Apologies. How… is… your… day… going.”

Garrus snorts, _alright, enough,_ “So what have you found?”

“Biological material scavenged from site. Suspicious. Truly alien. The collectors are engineered, without a doubt. Not sure what they were before. Quad-strand DNA bizarre. Never seen anything like it.”

Garrus’ mind flits to Shepard again – her DNA was technically also engineered. Maybe the reapers are targeting humans because it is easier to apply gene mods?

 _I am curious,_ “why do you think the collectors are targeting humans so much more than the rest of us?”

“Not sure. Have given it much thought. Assumptions only. Humans have very… pliable DNA.”

 _Interesting,_ “how would you know that?”

“I’m old. I have worked many projects. I remember everything.”

 _I suppose,_ “Alright. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Will continue to look into it anyway. Unsettling. Have other updates.”

 _I’m listening,_ he trills, “Which other updates?”

“Updates on deterrent.”

 _Good,_ “Good news, I hope.”

“Very good. I have the agent formulated. Ready for… uh… field run.”

Garrus’ eyes narrow, _how?_ “How do expect to test it?”

Solus’ blinks once.

 _No, you will not,_ Garrus’ mandibles click together, “You aren’t going to put that in the field without proving that it works.”

“Prove how?”

Garrus’ twitching mandibles snap to his jaw, _caution,_ “Solus.”

“Vakarian.”

“Mordin-”

“Clam yourself. Know it works. No time for mistakes.”

 _It does not work that way,_ Garrus’ subharmonics dip into a growl, “you seem pretty confident with yourself. I can’t trust that it will work.”

“I understand. Will work whether or not you trust it. Will deploy when the time comes.”

 _I must go,_ “Alright. I will speak with you later about this, Solus.”

“Looking forward to it,” comes the clipped reply. Garrus leaves to continue on his rounds, considering the doctor’s apparent over-confidence. Garrus would say the same thing if questioned about his aim; he can hit the center of any target and someone else’s beliefs do not affect his ability to do so. Doctor Solus would only say such a thing if he was truly sure. Still, it would not hurt to learn more about the deterrent so they have a plan B for the unlikely event in which it fails and leaves his team stranded amid a swarm of angry, alien insects.

Five sections, a number of unrelated missions, and a great deal of frustration later, and they have had no further contact with either the reaper or the Collector. Without warning, Command contacts him and reassigns his squad _again._ He will to be moved onto a much larger, and again, newer warship. This time it is prepared to handle direct confrontation.

His captain is a mysterious figure with no public records that he can identify. He cannot even find a picture of her anywhere. It has all the telltale signs of a fake identity – one that Command has created to mask who she really was. Or perhaps she created an identity for herself to run away from her past. Colony turians frequently do that to break free from their clan associations and start over. The Hierarchy is surprisingly kind to these brave individuals who give up a name to pursue a brighter future for themselves and their brethren. They often prove to be driven, passionate, and highly capable… and dangerous.

He is provided with a massive list of her qualifications and skills, which seems suspiciously long. They tell him that she is a disorienting and outgoing individual, and that getting used to her personality and leadership style might take a period or two. Coming from another turian that must really mean something.

Coincidentally, she has also been looking into the reaper threat and has some important information. Command wants them working together because they think the two of them will make more progress together. Now that smells extremely _fishy_ to him; surely Command would have informed him of any other teams working towards the same goal by now.

He is already wary of his captain based on her dossier and the total lack of any additional details provided to him, but he will do his best to reserve his judgments until he actually meets her. Apparently other people she has worked with have good things to say about her. “ _Apparently._ ” As they get closer to cast-off he starts to hear more about her and it just makes him more and more uncomfortable for reasons he cannot identify.

Several of the skeleton crew who happen to be on the superstation report that she makes a point to check up how they are faring every cycle and offers to help in whatever way she can. If they do need help, she has answers or knows someone who has the answers. She is not afraid to make requests from Command to provide her them with the resources they need. She spends a lot of her time working with engineering and spacewalking to help out with ship maintenance and pre-castoff checks. He wants to ignore what people are saying about her appearance, because it has nothing to do with how effective she is a captain, but they say she is a work of art.

* * *

At the end of the month she finally sets foot in her new ship with her new crew. The starship is as nice as Lanaai expected it to be and she does not fail to impress. When she notices that her crew information has been updated with some new critical operational staff she knows that Garrus’ squad has been assigned here.

She knows because she sees that her pilot has finally been assigned: Ti Nissus. Lanaai would want no one else piloting her ship, but Nissus is a package-deal along with Lo’kian, Focos, Sidonis, Quo’an, and Vakarian himself. Lanaai feels confident that her team is the best in the galaxy and that the reapers will not stand a chance against them.

They are still about a section out from final boarding and cast-off. The _Ilyx_ has more final checkup procedures to go through, and in the interest of keeping herself occupied, Lanaai volunteers to help. The engineering team is a bit surprised that their captain is assisting them with technical inspections because, like any other species, they have stereotyped her as a brutish military type despite her class.

Her appearance does not help either – that stereotype is universal. Litha did a perfect job on the transfer of her memories and the construction of her internals, so it logically followed that she would have taken time to handle _everything._ It is a blessing and a curse. Acronus does not have any issues with her own appearance, eliminating any of the image problems Shepard had. However, beautiful turians have no difficulties attracting company. And with company comes relationships… with relationships come unfair opportunities and preferential placement. Higher tiers… powerful acquaintances…

Lanaai Acronus woke up with assumed clan markings and chapters. Older, wiser turians might find them questionable because they are mostly unidentifiable. Solarus explained that their design comes from Kodara, where the identity host was born. She has a cover, but it is flaky at best right now and there is nothing she can do about it. Retaining the memories of a dead woman… two dead women… creates an uncomfortable delay between processing inputs and reacting in the manner of her host. From this behavioral anomaly alone, people become wary when first meeting her. She continues to work on settling into a new identity which she can shape into whatever she pleases.

To take her mind away from the ongoing adjustment, she quite enjoys the chances to spacewalk and work with her hands. Once they cast off, the opportunities to isolate herself in work will be rare. Lanaai knows most of the details of her own ship, and the exact layout of several specific assemblies. She goes out with the spacewalkers to review the maneuvering engines, which were made disproportionately large by her request. She wants her ship to be able to turn on a dime and strafe quickly in every direction, learning from the mistakes of the _Nocveus_.

There is no sound out here except the soft hiss of her suit’s maneuvering thrusters and the oxygen regulator. She enjoys it here. It feels wonderful to have full isolation like this. Her death did not leave her traumatized and afraid of space because she knows the void is not to blame. She actually enjoys it more now that she has control, and having access to a premium-tier turian mobility hardsuit is quite liberating.

It helps that she has been heavily involved in the construction of her own suit, so she trusts that it is always in perfect working condition. All the additional telemetry that turians have built into their bodies keep her aware and safe – the electromagnetic sensorlets in her skull pick up the weak fields generated from the alloy plating of the ship and give her a sense of orientation, despite the lack of gravity.

Lanaai takes great pride and care in her work out here in the cold vacuum. The engineering and planning, as well as the mechanical and physical work of the installations, give her a much-needed sense of purpose while she follows this new path. It is more or less what she wanted to do with her life all along, even if this is only temporary.

In the meantime, she builds up a rapport with her skeleton crew in the periods leading up to cast-off. These turians are much easier to spend time with than the specialists working for Alpheos, who’s silence and primness became stifling. Interacting with her crew makes it painfully clear that something about her personality was fundamentally altered by the resurrection of it. She finds spending time with her brothers and sisters very enjoyable and looks forward to eating with them in the mess or sparring with them on the mats or checking on them at their posts. Rutting is always a relief and any guilt that she used to feel is far behind her.

She still misses Garrus. She still _wants_ him.

She runs her ship “differently” according to the people she works with. Lanaai does not try to lead differently than any other turian captain would, but perhaps there is something else about her attitude that makes it seem different.

People see her all over the ship checking up on things and helping out whenever she can. Perhaps it is the selflessness that throws them. Turians like to tell themselves that they are selfless, but the higher-tiered individuals tend to “slack off” when it comes to donating their time and effort to helping out. Very few are safe from their egos. After several periods of awkwardness, her crew begins to knit together, herself included.

* * *

One of the skeleton crew welcomes Garrus’ team aboard the transport shuttle and they cast off from _Halus_ Superstation in orbit above Palaven.

“There she is, the _Ilyx_ ,” _a true beauty,_ the pilot calls out over the intercom. She is an impressive ship and bears a strong resemblance to the _Nocveus_ , which strongly implies that the same manufacturer is responsible for her construction, despite her unbranded exterior. The unmarked mainsails are clearly Vircon Dynamics imports, the sweeping curvature of her nose and tail indicate that Aurer was involved at some point. The maneuvering engines must be proprietary because he cannot recognize them.

As they approach the moored craft, the pilot chuckles to himself and points out a lone figure, who appears minuscule against the massive alloy expanse. It puts the size of the _Ilyx_ into perspective.

 _See, there,_ “Our captain might have trouble directing our crew if she’s outside the ship like that.”

Garrus’ squad crams against the windows to take a look. So it appears that the reports about her spacewalks are true, if that is truly their captain as the pilot says. As they get closer he watches her take off from one section of the hull and effortlessly zip to another as if it is second nature.

 _That worries me,_ Quo’an buzzes quietly, mirthlessly.

 _Calm yourself,_ Focos nudges him with an elbow.

Garrus’ squad are not the only ones arriving today. Soon after they depart from their shuttle in the spacious cargo bay, another three shuttles roll in and deliver what seem to be more medical staff, galley officers, comms officers, maintenance staff, etc. Garrus is provided a guided tour around the _Ilyx_ and notices that the layout is similar to the _Nocveus_ as well. It has the same sense of familiarity that the _Nocveus_ did with its organic curves and clean aesthetics. It even seems like the nesting pods are the same models with some slightly updated features. They are dropped off in the cafeteria so they can tank up on food and begin to meet the rest of their crew. Their squad is quickly joined by operating officers and he can ignore the anxiety that always comes with swapping postings.

As they head to their assigned pods to orient themselves and unpack, Garrus’ nose perks up a bit when he recognizes what he thinks is a familiar scent. He cannot quite place it.

Garrus is surprised that the captain has not been down to meet them yet. Perhaps she is still outside, walking.

 _Pardon me,_ he chirps to a terrified-looking comms officer, “Where is our Captain?”

 _Sir,_ “Captain Acronus is currently debriefing with the engineering team. Would you like me to guide you there?”

 _No, thank you,_ “I will find my way. Thank you,” Garrus nods to her and makes his way down several decks. He wants to evaluate this mysterious individual for himself after hearing so much about her.

He hears her voice first and it is powerful, but it is also familiar. He has heard it before and it gives him a foreboding sense of vertigo. Her subharmonics waft through his ears pleasantly. There are few turians he has met who can sound so confident with so little effort.

The engineers behind her perk up a bit and snap to attention, recognizing him as a superior. The captain, still wearing her hardsuit from her spacewalk, turns to face him and her head cocks just slightly. Her pupils dilate a bit as she considers him carefully.

 _I am incredibly pleased,_ “Welcome aboard, Commander.”

Garrus’ cervical plates stand up. The hearsay about her beauty was _not_ exaggerated. Her features are not sharp and overbearing as those preferred my the media, but gentle, youthful, and perfectly-proportioned. The carbon-colored plates and caramel-colored hide crate a pleasant and balanced contrast, indicating lineage in _Caperus._ From the way the light bounces off her plates, he can tell that they are incredibly smooth. She would have inherited that trait from a Palavenian coastal or equatorial country like Likraeia, Kre’laanis, or Solgia.

Spirits, her fringes are unsheared; the (ironic) equivalent of short hair on human females. Most turians prefer sheared fringes on females… but Garrus finds unsheared fringes _painfully_ attractive. The _iliur_ waves at the tips of her slightly crimson-tinted, slender, gracefully-curved fringes are nothing short of exotic; yet another trait he finds pleasing. He has never been so positively floored by another's appearance. His inability to focus almost distracts him from noticing how her clan markings do not offer any telling sings of origin. She must have a very small family.

He finally concludes that something about her appearance seems… off; too perfect for this world. No being can really be this attractive… to _him_ – she checks every box of his personal preferences for aesthetics. Who is she, really? His initial apprehension begins to set in quickly. Everything about Acronus _wafts_ : her scent, her sound, her aura. She is clearly the most powerful person he has ever met without any trace of hubris or ego. Her clear blue eyes are so painfully familiar.

Despite his first impressions, the unadulterated intelligence softly-spoken through her irises makes her seem genuine. He manages to pull himself together-enough to respond.

 _Sincerely so,_ “It is an honor to be serving on this craft, Captain,” he replies as easily as he can.

Her mandibles draw together and her brow furrows for a moment. After a short pause the captain nods to the engineering team, some of whom look longingly after her.

 _With me,_ “Won’t you walk with me for a moment?” she asks.

 _Of course,_ he hums and follows her out.

Garrus is in a unique position because his role on this craft as a “guest” is nearly second to hers, and his authority extends over just about everyone else’s. He does not have to feel pressured to please Acronus because there is not much of a reason to.

As they talk he gradually feels more and more uncomfortable around her. It bothers him that he cannot quite place why she has this effect on him, and why this is the first time he feels this way around someone else. If this ship is familiar in the way that the layout makes it feel like home, then Acronus is familiar in the way that makes her seem like an impostor. It is as if she has been engineered to say and do things a certain way; to prey on him.

Garrus contemplates what the hell could possibly be wrong with him. She is clearly qualified to do this job and her confidence should be reassuring to him, but the way she had cocked her head just so when he spoke to her was almost like…

_Lia_

He shakes off the paranoia. This is not the first time another person has reminded him of her, and perhaps his mind is trying to see her in everything since she was taken away from him so violently. Anything that mimics her by coincidence makes him feel cheated and jealous. He convinces himself that this feeling will dissipate as he has more time to work with Acronus, just as it has in the past. He has moved on from allowing the tragedy of her death to drag him down. They are moving against the reapers now, and with greater impetus than ever before. He has not forgotten about Saren or the Collector.

* * *

They are in orbit close by the _Halus_ Superstation above Palaven, and Lanaai is out on her last walk for a while before they cast off to resume their hunt. She looks up briefly and notices the shuttles approaching the craft. The remaining crew on are on their way.

She pauses to observe them for a moment, trying to figure out based on the flying styles which of her pilots is flying each shuttle. One makes a particularly close pass and she knows immediately who has the controls. Her mandibles flare against the walls of her helmet. Talus is a very skilled pilot – he and Nissus will get along quite well. She moves onto her final check, gliding across the surface of the _Ilyx_ to a maintenance hatch on one of her massive Vircon mainsails. Once she verifies systems from here they will be good for cast-off.

With all prep work done, Lanaai is able rest-easy knowing that her ship is ready to fight. She eases herself into a seat in the cafeteria by herself, which has emptied out at this odd hour, still wearing her hardsuit. She finds herself missing the company of her crewmates.

After her meal, Acronus makes her way to engineering to debrief. They review their systems checks, confirming that they have not missed anything and all tests have been properly completed. She needs to sign off on a certification to gain control over her craft. Up until now she has had no power to actually order the ship to move, but as soon as the ship passes its cast-off bluelighting, she will officially have full control over its movements and actions.

While they wrap up the meeting, joking about how their engines are overly-complicated, like handmade timepieces with mass effect fields slapped in, her nose perks up a bit – it is Garrus, _her Garrus._ His scent has not changed in the slightest. If anything, she can smell all sorts of other unique and pleasant elements of it that she could not before, even with the mods.

But Garrus is different. He has been broken by whatever he has suffered during these past two years. Perhaps no one else can see it but she can. Luckily, her position will make it possible to keep him from wasting his life away any longer. Having him back feels so good that she cannot keep it off her subharmonics.

 _I am incredibly pleased,_ “Welcome aboard, Commander” she greets him like she has never met him before, but like she obviously read up on his file. He gawks at her for a moment, and she struggles not to blush. She has never seen him react this way to another person, and realizing that he approves of her appearance provides her with an odd sense of relief.

He quickly transitions into his familiar, detail-scanning mode. He sizes her up and finds out where her facade is lacking. She only knows he does this because she has known him for so long, but it is not fair to him to treat him that way. She is _not_ Shepard, even if her memories might suggest that she is. Still, just as she remembers, when he speaks it is a breath of fresh air that fills her lungs. The subharmonics are clear and warm. She wonders if this is what turians feel when they have discovered their lifemate.

As they walk the halls and talk, Acronus notices that he becomes increasingly short for words, like he is trying to escape from her presence. She cuts off their conversation because he is clearly out of it and sends him on his way.

She is disappointed with herself. She obviously made a terrible first impression on him despite her best efforts to come across as a dedicated, trustworthy individual. She has been unable to differentiate herself from her past completely and now she will face the consequences of her incompetence. Garrus knows exactly what to look for and his eyes are sharp, so he will detect any little detail that she cannot effectively cover up. His mind will tell him that the detail comes from someone else; someone close to him. Those little things will add up and hinder his capacity to place his trust in her. There is very little she can do about that.

Acronus introduces herself to Garrus’ squad, feeding them the typical lines about how she has read their files and reviewed their combat footage, which is mostly true. She is glad to see them again, but they look like they have been through hell alongside with their commander. Lanaai has not been in the dark about the krogan attacks on turian colonies so she assumes that Garrus’ team has witnessed some pretty debauched situations on his ground missions. They also have a salarian on board, which is a surprise to her because she was not informed about this ahead of time.

Mordin Solus.

Acronus assumes he has some connection with Garrus and that his presence aboard was a request with Command. She does not need to be around him very long to tell that he is about as dangerous as Litha is. She does not want another “Litha” on her ship for fear of what he would do on a whim, if left unsupervised. What if he decided he would like to up and end the genophage, and start another galactic war?

Acronus deeply considers kicking Solus off the ship before castoff but, according to him, Garrus brought him here because he can help them fight the reapers. As a geneticist he can pick up slack where needed, not to mention that he can help them curb the Collector’s attack before it abducts a colony. They already have a perfectly competent geneticist on board with them, but Solus alleges to have direct knowledge of the reaper threat. She has not talked to Garrus enough to believe Solus.

Acronus loves her crew but she has retained that paranoia that Shepard had regarding infiltrators and moles among her peers. There has to be at least one turian here who works for separatists or terrorists or a shadow corporation… or a cell like Alpheos… shady benefactors who would like nothing more than to take harness their knowledge and use it to gain an unreasonable and unethical upper hand. And then, in their disunity, the reapers would raze and harvest them even faster.

The juxtaposition of how cross she is with her necromancers and how grateful she is to them remains one of her greatest emotional hurdles. She may never reconcile both. She spends a great deal of time walking her ship and interacting with her crewmates to focus on the positives. She can put her faith in people to make her feel happy, yet another new concept to her.

She wants her peers to feel comfortable making decisions without requiring the approval of their superiors because, in times of chaos, everyone needs to be capable of leading their brothers and sisters. This is also an excuse to talk to Garrus and derive happiness from being around him again. He looks rather shocked when she walks into the mess during Fourth and sits herself down at his table… where he was sitting alone.

“Hey, Vakarian,” _greetings,_ she arranges her cutlery and dish as she always does and looks up to find him observing. She smiles at the familiarity of his behavior, even if he is being critical of her. This is truly her Garrus even if he is tired and weathered. It is a shame that she cannot be who she was.

“Welcome, Captain,” _respectfully,_ he replies and turns back to his meal.

She makes a face, _ugh,_ “Acronus, please. I am more than my rank.”

 _Oh, apologies,_ “Sorry Cap- Acronus. Everyone has a different preference.”

 _I’m quite aware,_ “How are you settling in, brother? I know some can find re-assignment to be bothersome,” _like me._

“The _Ilyx_ is the finest craft I’ve ever seen. Truly a work of art,” _every detail impresses me._

“I think so too, but you didn’t answer my question,” _how are you faring?_

 _Sorry,_ “I was just _blinded_ by the majesty of this craft,” _I jest,_ “I’ve gotten used to moving around in my career. Command has a short attention span… well and apparently so do the krogan who terrorize those outer colonies.”

 _I see,_ “I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m glad that you’re on board with us and feeling comfortable here,” _truly so._

 _Pardon me for asking,_ “Please forgive me if this sounds too personal-”

“We’re off duty right now, you can pretty much ask me whatever you want and I’ll humor you, assuming it’s genuine. I try to be open,” _I am here for my people,_ she cuts in and reminds him.

“Ordinarily when I’m curious about someone I’d ask where they grew up and what their childhood was like, but… uh” _Special Forces people…_

 _Right, right,_ “Yeah I know what you’re talking about. I avoid talking about my past because its… well it’s usually a conversation-ender. You know… I don’t want pity for things I had no control over…” She starts recalling things now, in the middle of a conversation with the man who made her, with an unprecedented level of clarity. She remembers the day when a pair of officers found her at academy and informed her that her father had perished in an equipment malfunction. She feels practically crushed by the weight of the memory. What the hell?

 _Oh. I’m sorry,_ “I’m sorry I asked. I didn’t want to shoot the conversation down so soon.”

 _Don’t apologize,_ “Hey, everyone has the right to ask. And according to your dossier, shooting things down quickly is your specialty.”

His mandibles droop for a moment before returning to his jaw.

 _Wow,_ “Not what I expected from you Cap- Acronus.”

 _Hey now,_ “It was a shitty joke, sorry… not really sorry though.”

 _It really was,_ “I didn’t take you for a comedian, Captain.”

 _Get ready,_ “Well, then prepare to be impressed by my _amazing_ comedy skills.”

* * *

In the following cycle Garrus does not feel any less uncomfortable around Acronus than he did before. The only difference is that now he is getting used to the way it feels and learning to cope with it. He remembers after Shepard died that he was unable to stop dwelling on her in every waking moment, and it has taken basically up until now for him to finally accept that she is dead. That she is _not_ coming back.

And then he met Lanaai Acronus. She is nothing like his Lia and yet… it is like looking into an image of who she wanted to be.

 _I’ll find my way back to you, Garrus, in one form or another_.

Her personality far from Lia’s, but Acronus does these nearly imperceptible things that remind him of her. The more he thinks about it the more he notices. He thinks of it as confirmation bias because he is looking for similarities and his mind is playing tricks on him… but… she does that pause when listening to people, and when she sits and works by herself she props her head up with her knuckles the same way. Her head tilts at the same angle. Her eyes light up in the same color. Her scent reminds him of home. It should not remind him of something so close to his heart.

Garrus just cannot figure out the rest of her. He devotes an abnormal quantity of his mental faculties to figuring out this one turian who he will probably never see again after this is all over. The extent that her aesthetics are pleasing to him is always accompanied with the feeling that her appearance is just a façade because no one can be _this_ perfect.

He finds these tiny snippets of information about her floating around the web but nothing of actual substance. He knows she is a colony kid, but not know where she grew up, who her parents are or were, and what she did to achieve her class, rank, and tier… Or how she knows so much about the reapers when Garrus was not aware of any other teams looking into them. Command works in mysterious ways and he supposes it is possible they sent out others without informing him.

Then she joins him for a meal in the mess and begins to change his mind. He can tell she is trying to bring him out of his defensive corner which makes conversation a little awkward at first. Despite the suspicious lack of blemishes on her exterior, her display of emotions is completely genuine. He would notice if she were lying to him or putting on a show. She is outgoing and personable. He will have to give himself a chance to trust her, otherwise they will make no progress in their professional or personal relationship.

Shortly following their first real conversation, they receive word that comm buoys have spotted the Collector headings towards a human colony planet. It is actually _returning_ , but this time to abduct the only other colony on the other side of the planet. Hopefully, the last incident here was enough of a lesson to the Alliance. Anti-air defensive upgrades should probably slow that damn ship down. If they can reach the ground before the Collector takes everyone then they will be able to deploy and field-test Solus’ anti-paralysis agent.

They book it. When they arrive they find no signs of the Collector, so they have essentially just dropped straight into a human colony without warning or warrant. With tensions running high everywhere, it must look like an invasion of some kind. They have to explain to the supervisor on the ground why he should not start bombarding their starship with flak, and why they are here in the first place. Ironically, they catch their break when the Collector shows up and parks itself above the human colony. Time to move. Garrus’ entire squad deploys except Nissus, who stays on board to pilot their ship.

This is awkward – they cannot blow the Collector out of the sky because it will either crush the entire colony or destabilize and annihilate the planet if its core overloads. They will have to get the craft to bug out by ruining its ability to abduct the colonists, or by infiltrating it somehow. So be brings along Solus so he can “field test” his swarm deterrent. Acronus surprises him by insisting that she comes along as well. Clearly she has it out for these things and she needs the stress relief.

They are on the ground within minutes. Human colonists are hiding inside their homes or running through the streets, panicked. The Collector seems to finally notice that something is going on down here and sends out the swarm as they expected it to. The sky darkens and the air fills with the buzzing of millions of insects.

Solus says something in his twitchy manner and sets up what he calls a “shroud:” a portable device of salarian design used to quickly saturate the local atmosphere with any gaseous agent. These most often appear in C-Sec _riot control_ units. Lo’kian drops the heavy structure down and Mordin gets to work activating it. The device powers up and then blasts a massive field upwards which collapses in a shower of embers. The sparkling aftermath materializes a cloud of what they hope will simultaneously kill off these insects and prevent the paralysis agent from having any effect.

The bugs die by the millions and their corpses rain to the ground, turning it to mud as they lose their structure and dissolve. It is disgusting and it will be a painful chore to clean up this mess, but at least the colonists are not being trafficked into whatever hell lies aboard the Collector. They have to evacuate people anyway because as soon as the Collector leaves it will crush the colony with a pressure wave just as it did with the last one.

His heart ices over when the Collector starts moving. It looks like it figured this colony it not worth the effort now that the populace cannot be easily stolen.

“Brace yourselves,” _it will flatten everything,_ he says about as calmly as he can, preparing for the worst. However, the Collector leaves slowly, like it is trying not to harm them. Acronus watches it go, her entire body radiating anger.

 _Spirits damn it all,_ “Nissus get us out of here,” _I am at my limits!_ she growls.

They know which direction The Collector headed and approximately where it would stop, based on the temporal fallout at their end of the effect field, but that means very little because it will simply continue to jump. They made a mess, but at least they thwarted the attack. The colony would have been gone by now without their intervention. They remain in orbit until the Alliance arrives, but Acronus does not stick around too long to answer questions. This is as desperate as he has seen her.

It is some time later that he finds Acronus in the gym taking out her anger on Focos. Acronus is incredibly angry about something, even more so than she was before. Focos finally jabs her and Acronus ducks out, having found enough relief to call it quits. They thank one another and Focos heads out, giving Garrus a warning glance as she passes.

 _Watch yourself,_ she chirps quietly to him. Garrus simply nods and turns his attention to the captain.

 _You’re breaking,_ “What has you so riled up? Was Focos treating you like trash, as she does,” _not really. I jest,_ He tries to go for humor to stall her ire. He wins an amused trill from Acronus.

 _Very funny,_ “it’s been about half a cycle, and I’ve already been notified by Command that another human colony is missing.”

 _What? Shocking!_ “Already? Spirits…” he sighs, _we’ll stop it,_ “We’ll continue to hunt it down.”

“Easier said than done,” _as everything is,_ “The Alliance was careful this time and did not leak as much information. It seems like we are all fighting a losing battle here,” _even though I hope for the best._

Garrus does not want to suggest that they follow other leads because he does not want to prod her temper. Perhaps she needs a rut. Before he can open his mouth to ask he stops and watches her scan him for with her crystal-blue eyes.

 _Well,_ “I guess we should just go after your other leads.”


	27. Chapter 27

Acronus is aware that Garrus is picking up on things she used to do habitually or without thinking about it. She thought we was over most of these habits, but now she makes a greater effort to identify and quash them. Whenever she looks up and notices him in the room she evaluates her current posture and corrects it. She thinks about where she places her hands, her feet, and gaze.

She practices privately in her small personal quarters, finding it deplorable but necessary. Acronus wishes she did not have to lie to him, but if she wants Garrus to trust her again then she really does have to be someone new; then it will no longer be “lying.” She depends on his trust in order to create the best unit cohesion possible, or so she tells herself. Of course, they need to maximize their efficiency in order to stand any chance against the reapers and whatever forces the reapers employ to advance their cause… but she also _needs_ him.

It does not take long for Acronus to build up a good standing with the rest of Garrus’ squad. They are not quite as perceptive as Garrus is, so they find her easy to get along with once they adjust to her personality. Her existing knowledge of their behaviors and preferences makes it easy for her to access their trust and their friendship without being too conspicuous.

She is also glad to have Nissus in control over her ship because she is completely certain that Nissus does not work for any personal interest groups. It means that Acronus can tell Nissus where to go without quite revealing it to the entire crew and trust that she will stay quiet. Talus, Nissus’ co-pilot and a very “close friend” of hers lately, is not old-enough to have ulterior motives either.

The _Alliance_ sensors Garrus rigged last time they were out here detect the Collector’s arrival in the locus of a colony world it already visited. Acronus authorizes Nissus to crank the _Ilyx_ up to her full, illegal speed potential in order to reach this colony as fast as possible and stop another attack. She is driven to learn more about this Collector – why and how it abducts colonies. She barely has time to query Command about the status of this human colony before they arrive well ahead of the Collector itself. The only reason why she knew to speed over here is because the last time they had a problem on this particular planet, Garrus discreetly bugged up all the comm buoys to copy sensor information to turian-controlled data centers. It is now paying off, more or less, but if the Alliance finds out about it there might be violent consequences.

There are no indications that the Alliance made an effort to fortify their own colonies even after another of their settlements on the same planet was wiped of its populace. That makes her angry because she still cares about the fate of humanity. At least she has a crew of people willing to solve the problem themselves. Unfortunately, without any prior announcement, this appears to be an invasion and the poor colonists on the ground probably think this is the beginning of a new inter-species war. Garrus steps in and interfaces with the very distraught human on the other end of the line. It must really look terrible that an unmarked and un-designated turian craft showed up here so quickly.

Then the Collector shows up, as if on schedule, and lumbers by them. She sends out Garrus’ squad along with their Salarian friend who, Garrus has assured her, knows what he is doing. She also places herself on his drop team because she needs to shoot something to death right now.

Acronus is impressed with Solus’ efficiency. She assumes he probably has history with the STG if he has access to this type of technology and specialized training. He also carries a gun so comfortably and nonchalantly that she has no doubts that he has previous combat experience.

Lo’kian’s heavy weapon has been replaced with a “shroud.” The massive turian drops the device onto the ground and it deploys to nearly twice his height. Solus’ quick work activates it in just seconds, and it lights up the sky with a brilliant glowing plasma. A fog of whatever agent he invented appears briefly before evaporating into the air. All she can do is hope that it will work.

She becomes much angrier when the Collector simply bolts after the shroud’s effect obliterates the swarm. She came down here to fulfill her desire for violence and received no gratification. Acronus has had it with this thing and she wants it blown to bits immediately, but when she requests a full munitions dump she is denied by her gunnery officer.

_Too dangerous,_ “We can’t risk a destabilization. A ship that size could wipe the entire system,” Acronus knows this, and she cannot argue with him, but she thought she would say it anyway just to feel better about herself.

_Spirits damn it all,_ “Nissus get us out of here,” is the next thing that comes to mind. They are done here. They did not learn anything new. She should be happy that they inspired the Collector to fuck off without abducting a single human, and that Solus’ countermeasure worked perfectly, but she is angry that they have not solved the real problem: the Collector is still at large and it can still abduct other colonies, and there is no way they can keep reliably within their sights.

Obviously, they have to do some housekeeping in the wake of the incident. All they end up telling the colony director was that they were tipped off that an attack would occur so they showed up to prevent it. They are not at liberty to say anything else. As expected, the director is off-the-rails furious because their explanation is so vague and unsatisfactory. Their cue to exit comes when an Alliance craft arrives during their exchange.

They now know exactly how the colonies are being abducted, but they cannot link the Collector directly to the reapers yet. She posts a notice to Command to waste this ship if they ever spot it or hear of someone spotting it, but this is a feeble attempt, and Garrus surprises her by taking it down almost instantaneously. His ruling is automatically favored over hers because his tier is higher, even if she holds rank over him and it is quite literally considered insubordination on her ship.

_What are you thinking?_ “Do I write you up for insubordination, Vakarian?” she growls at him when she finally finds him at his workstation.

_Pardon me?_ he drops his datapad and turns to face her, “What are you talking about? Insubordination… uh… oh!” _I realize,_ his tone quickly shifts from neutral to assertive.

_The tactic was flawed,_ “It’s not ins- listen, I understand that you are angry, but as far as we can tell, there are hundreds of thousands of abducted individuals on that ship. Our priority needs to be disabling the craft so we can retrieve them… not to lay waste to it.”

Acronus cocks her head and considers whether or not she should yell at him. She so rarely disagrees with Garrus that she is never entirely prepared to handle a difference in perspective when it happens. To make matters worse, she cannot remember a single time when she ever _won_ an argument with him because he is _never wrong._ She cannot argue the converse and tell him that there is no reason they should assume that the colonists are on board, because the reasoning is the same. Her mandibles pull towards her jaw. He probably thinks she is an idiot.

She _is_ angry. She is an idiot when she is angry.

_You’re right,_ “I must be stressed out. I’ll speak to you later, Vakarian.”

She turns and leaves to go find a spar and a rut. She cannot bring herself to ask him yet, afraid of what would happen to her if she let him in right now.

A couple hours later command informs her that they have caught a leaked distress call from another human colony on the other side of the galaxy. Not only is that impossible, but they know nothing about the colony’s location other than a couple of vague emergency signals wafting through a volus sensor array.

Acronus is so irate at this point that she cannot think clearly. Acronus sees that Quo’an is relaxing so she goes and finds Focos, and asks if she would care to spar. Focos agrees and they go at it until her anger subsides a bit, leaving behind a dull ache. She notices Garrus’ scent before she looks up and sees him there, his subharmonics buzzing with concern, his gaze fixed intently on her. So very familiar. She could ask him to take her and she knows he would agree, but she does not want to throw herself down that rabbit hole… at least not yet.

They are not going after the Collector anymore because there is just no point. They cannot destroy it when it shows itself because it is always too risky, and Garrus is right to assume that there are innocents aboard who need rescue. They cannot convince anyone to bolster their defenses either as all previous warnings were ignored. She knows what Garrus wants to say so she says it for him. They will go after his other leads.

* * *

Garrus finds Acronus eating by herself in the mess – which is unusual for her – towards the very end of Fourth just before the sustenance officers sanitize the area and clean up any straggling traces of food. He decides to join her and see if he can learn more about her history; starship Captains generally do not have the skill set that she wields on a daily basis. Someone of her caliber and tendencies usually works with engineers and physicists on the Hierarchy’s next greatest protectors.

Acronus looks up and chirps, _hello brother!_ between bites, “It’s a bit late to start Fourth don’t you think?” she says after swallowing.

_Very observant,_ “I already ate. You’re one to talk, by the way,” _you’re down here alone._

“So you’re here just here to bother me?” _you could never bother me,_ she chides playfully.

_I suppose,_ “I was going to grab a snack anyway, and everyone else around here is busy.”

_Me too,_ “I know. I’ll just pretend you’re here because you like spending time with me then.”

_No, no,_ he backpedals and stutters, “I actually do like…” he trails off as he watches her brows raise, “…uh… I actually wanted to find out more about you. How does an engineer end up in your position,” _please mind my awkwardness._

_Hmm…_ “I could say the same about you. Also I’ll pretend that I didn’t just hear you suggest that people with engineering skills can’t lead a crew,” she takes another bite.

_Please,_ “Acronus…”

_Sorry, you’re too easy,_ “I just like pulling your mandibles. Yeah I get why most find that confusing, but what about you? Didn’t you discover a new mass core technology when you were a fledgling?”

_It was an accident,_ he has been caught, “That doesn’t count.”

_Not true,_ “Your dossier says otherwise. And I see you in the cargo bay in your off hours wrapped up in your projects. Why are you running around with a gun in your hands?”

_Wait a second,_ “You were supposed to be answering my question.”

_You were,_ “I realize that. I thought I’d see how long it would take you to notice.”

_Spirits, woman,_ he chuffs and shakes his head. It feels like a long time since he smiled for someone.

_I concede,_ she smiles at him and starts to speak, “It began like you’d expect. When I was little I had an interest in drafting and starships. My parents… they were meager people, but they were… very supportive. They,” _loved me, I knew it to be so,_ she pauses and glances nervously away for a moment before locking down his gaze once more.

“Uh… I was lucky enough to find a good teacher on my backwater home colony… Kodara. He fostered my creativity with the budget he had and we found our way. Me and a friend of mine earned tier and accepted an academy position on Palaven. I… quickly it all changed. They turned me into a killer. I let them. I thought it was the best way to get what I wanted but… I was naïve.”

_I empathize,_ “I know… I know,” _me too,_ he bows his head, “I know.”

He did not expect to relate so closely with someone so seemingly different than himself; someone who he found entirely untrustworthy for several periods. Without revealing much about herself, he can begin to fill in details about her history based on his own.

_Sorry,_ “Like I said, my history is not really conversation-worthy. No one wants to listen to a flagship burn.”

_Not so,_ he replies, “Despite growing up in a different place, I relate. I don’t understand why I let the Hierarchy make me who I am. I think I had good intentions and I thought that I might be able to go back. But… they’ve been eating up all my breadcrumbs.”

_What?_ she chirps, “I don’t get it. Breadcrumbs?”

_Sorry,_ “Ah. It’s from a human tale. They’ve been dusting my tracks,” _can you parse?_

_I get it,_ “I see. Yeah. That’s right, you grew up on Bridge… I think, once we end this, that I’d want to go back… to go make something. Can’t let anyone hear me say that or they’ll trap me here.”

“Definitely. We just have to end this first. Then we’ll break out,” _to a better way._

_Easy,_ “Yeah,” she shakes her head and stands up to go return her tray. Garrus watches her go and contemplates what she said. A colony background with humble beginnings would explain why there is no information about her clan that he can find. Couples who meet there or flee there tend to incorporate into a unitary clan, leaving behind thousands of practically nameless families with no past and little hope for the future. Acronus just happens to be one. He wonders with academy on Palaven she attended, but supposes that it matters very little because Blackwatch has clearly expunged most of her public record.

He still wants more detail, but he is content to allow her tell him rather than interrogate it out of her. She will tell him when she wants to and it will flow naturally between them. He is prepared to offer information about himself as well, but she never asks. Her assumptions generally seem close-enough to the truth, but he suspects that she is simply being courteous. Most turians are guarded about their past because, in general, it is irrelevant to how they perform during active duty. The only time when it truly becomes acceptable is when bonded or in the emergency room.

Acronus did seem oddly confused, however, and that puzzles him. Her expression portrayed several odd emotions as she spoke about her parents and her dreams. If anything, he would have expected to see melancholy: the same emotion he always feels when remembering Marek, Lia, or Jess, or his own family, or his original intent. Discussing loss creates a certain set of contours and positions on a turians’ facial features, halfway between a resting and a mourning expression, in the same way that the corners of humans’ eyelids wrinkle when they smile. Acronus did not show any signs of this pattern… but neither was she lying. It is as if she does not understand why she can remember her family in the first place. Several periods ago he would have condemned her as a liar, but now it seems more like she wishes to protect herself by keeping it hidden.

* * *

Acronus feels confused more than anything while she begins to recall a past that does not belong to her. Except that it does. Litha had commanded her not to search for memories, but they seem to eagerly come back to her when she attempts to put herself there. The images from one childhood and another blend together and she has to pick between them rather carefully, and for the first time she recalls herself speaking in a voice that does not sound like her own or like _Lia’s._ Garrus has to be observing her hesitation and her conflicted expression right now and postulating about it; she is not lying to him, but the melancholy takes a backseat to the befuddlement.

She has to excuse herself to go have a moment of privacy and gather her mind. The outline of her life that she memorized as part of her rehabilitation is now becoming reality before her eyes. Litha warned her about this and Acronus thought that she would be able to handle it without any issue, but that could not be farther from the truth. It swamps her composure to dive into these memories and relive them not only because the emotion is real, but also because she has no idea what she will find in there. In the meantime she hopes that Garrus can just bear with her and that she can figure out how to present them without looking so lost.

Lanaai was real. Telicos and Aaleir were real. Delian… she can look into the Blackwatch database and find Delian Silerus’ name, rank, and tier in there and feel pride that her closest friend made it so far with his career. Except _Garrus_ is her closest friend.

* * *

It is like they are back where they started; square one. His leads do not turn any results so they resort to chasing any old anomaly and hoping they catch something. It almost seems like command might have them go back to dealing with the krogan pressure on turian colonies.

He is just as frustrated as Acronus and in finding her just as upset as he is, he finds common ground with her once again. For once he does not feel uncomfortable to accept her empathy. She knows why he is angry and exhausted with this chase, why it is so aggravating to know this invasion is going to happen at some point but not when, and why it is so difficult to remain motivated and focused when everyone’s doubts are stacking up and all this effort is for nothing.

“Vakarian, you look worse for wear, brother,” _tell me,_ he hears her voice and his fringe lifts a bit in anticipation of something, “This mission getting you down?” _because it gets me down._

“Is that rhetorical question?” _of course, I am frustrated,_ he replies. She should know the answer.

She replies, “Yes it is. This mission is getting me down and I am infinitely frustrated with how it seems impossible to beat it into the _thick_ skulls of everyone else that this is a real problem.”

“Tell me about it, sister,” _believe me, I know,_ he drawls, “You’d think that after talking directly to a prothean AI about this we’d convince them. The damn thing even gave us an enormous catalog of information about _other reapers,_ and their… their _personalities._ Like collector cards or something…”

“…What does that mean? They have designations? Personalities? They’re machines,” _that’s insane._

Garrus looks at Acronus and cannot help the sarcasm in his voice, _of course they do,_ “We have: _Sovereign:_ smug bastard, and _Harbinger:_ stoic and calculating, and _C’thelis:_ aggressive, and… _Promethius:_ fights dirty, _Acheron:_ this one was strange and I don’t understand it… they called _Acheron,_ ‘pacifist.’ Must have been delusional. Anyway pick your favorite reaper. Mine is _Harbinger_ because it’s the overpowered one. Although I’m pretty sure _Sovereign_ is the one that blew up my damn ship,” _that bastard!_ “and killed my… best friend,” he stops himself from saying _mate_ in front of her.

_Unreal,_ “What in spirits name? What, did they all get their names from science fiction vids? And the overpowered one… Garrus? Really? You’d play the overpowered unit even though you know it ruins the game?”

“Of course – you use what you have. There is no game, you either have an advantage or you have to survive. As for the names… I can’t make this up,” _I wish I could,_ he replies and turns back to his work, “I’m so sick of this.”

“I really just cannot understand how the denial of evidence can be this powerful. What if… we should bring in, what did you call it, _Sovereign_? We should bring that one in to give a slideshow to the council about the impending harvest.”

_I like the way you think,_ he turns back to her and feels the mirth tug his mandibles apart, “Like one of those terrible, pretentious product unveiling events…” _so sleek, so modern, so… on fire,_ Garrus starts feeding off her energy. When was the last time he could open up? He imitates the role of presenter, “Welcome, I am _Sovereign_ , and allow me to present our revolutionary new product: the apocalypse. And then the tagline beneath the thing is,” he sweeps his arms and outlines the imaginary text in the air, “you’ll be burning.”

_Hah! Revolutionary indeed,_ Acronus bubbles with mirth, despite the subject matter, “I mean it would sell them on the idea. You would make a good businessman, Vakarian.”

“Please, Captain, it’s _Mr. Professional Businessman_ Vakarian to you.”

Acronus snorts in response to his stupid comment.

_My friend,_ “Dumb joke. Really nailed it. It would be even funnier if it wasn’t so sad or true. Spirits… we’ll think of something.”

She suddenly diverts from the current conversation, clearly seeking something less weighty to talk about, “I see you are working on a PCB,” _what is?_ she points out his little pet project which is just something to help him pass the time and keep him sane. _What is_? Lia used that as shorthand to inquire about his projects. He needs to stop thinking about her. She is _gone_.

“Visor needs maintenance,” _as she does,_ Garrus replies, changing his attention.

“You’re still wearing your visor. Seems like it would be hard to work on it if it’s still attached to your head,” _fused to it._

_Don’t you worry,_ “I promise to take off the visor when I swap the boards.”

“Barring the fact that I know you like to work on these projects… why the effort when you could have the manufacturer replace it? Is it out of warranty or something? Or maybe you like voiding the warranty because you prefer to live on the _edge,_ ” _as a threat to our galaxy. I jest._

Garrus laughs, _spirits,_ “You ask a lot of questions, Captain. This model is old and the new ones are incredibly uncomfortable. They don’t make the fit right anymore, and I’m too attached to go and get fitted.”

_I totally understand,_ she trills, “Yeah they- Oh spirits,” _you suffer,_ she says when she eyeballs the decrepit soldering iron he has been using, “don’t you want a proper reflow oven for this? I’m surprised we don’t have one around here already,” _poor thing._

She immediately opens up her omni-tool and starts hunting around. He wants to tell her that he would like it very much, but he should not allow his personal projects to burden her or require her attention. He is about to tell her not to worry about it.

_Don’t-_

_Stop,_ “You’ll destroy the board with that thing.”

He scoffs, _my hands are steady._

_Trust me, I know,_ “Alright I’ve ordered you some better supplies,” _you should have asked,_ she looks up from her omni-tool, “ _not_ a visor. I’m not one to come between a man and his visor.”

“Captain-”

_Please,_ “Vakarian we’ve been over this. Please, Acronus or Lanaai when off duty,” _I dislike like the formal designation,_ her sudden interruption surprises him, as does the hand on his shoulder. He has to contemplate why someone of her tier would encourage this type of conduct, especially on such an important vessel. He is silent for long enough that she completes his previous train of thought.

_I’m happy to help,_ “Don’t worry about it. Your productiveness while on duty is dependent on your productiveness and happiness while off duty. The two are linked, even if you pretend they aren’t. You are a leader on and off the field, Vakarian, and having the ability to help and teach others augments with access to proper resources. Besides, it’s not like you asked for a fifty kilogram crate of naxa.”

“Sorry, my mind is not sharp right now,” _and I’m tired,_ he tries, “feels like I’m running on fumes.”

_What?_ “running on… what? Another one of those human expressions? Or are you breathing in too much smoke from your solder?” she chirps.

_Oops,_ “Yeah, sorry.”

“Well then take a break. We can go get some naxa from that fifty kilogram crate of naxa I ordered a couple weeks ago. Made quite a difference in morale, at least for engineering and comms teams.”

Acronus is genuinely his first superior who does not seem like she is trying to subjugate him, or anyone else for that matter. Shepard had been astonishingly good at this. That is, perhaps, another reason he finds her so familiar.

Acronus’ conversations with him in their off hours quickly become the high-points of the period. He realizes he has missed speaking with someone who seems to simply understand _why_ he is angry. Most turians are beaten into submission and just follow someone else throughout their careers, but Garrus has always been terrible at following orders given out by morons, regardless of rank. He has mostly circumvented this by achieving the highest rank he can and superseding everyone so that he does not have to listen to them.

Acronus does not give terrible orders and she treats her crew like he treats his squad: she values their lives. They are irreplaceable. He feels _valued_ for his contributions here.

He should have remembered to shut up while walking because the distraction makes him start to say things he might otherwise keep to himself… _dangerous_ things. Acronus does not stop him either. She feeds his fire and he strays farther and farther away from calm. His built up anger and frustration pours out and she listens to him.

His squad and the crew listen to his _orders,_ but she listens to _him._

He realizes he just called her “Lia” after he finishes rambling, and he is beyond embarrassed. He apologizes to his Captain for the disregard, and accepts the insane blush rising up his neck as his due punishment. She reaches into the refrigerator and grabs him a naxa fruit, taking one for herself.

“Who was she?” _tell me,_ she asks as she takes a bite, “… to you I mean. Obviously I know about her from your team’s accounts and from… _other_ sources. I assume you meant Commander Shepard?”

It takes him a moment to process that simple question. He does not register how it could be – in spite of everything he and Lia accomplished while investigating this problem and all the intel they gathered to start a galactic shift towards preparation – that only remnants of her legacy remain, immortalized only by sterile and lifeless reports. It is just so oddly draining to be reminded of the fact that she will only be remembered for how she helped and died, rather than who she was and what she meant to her friends.

“We were close. We were… she made me who I am and I regret leaving her,” _truly I do._

_I’m sorry for your loss, brother,_ Acronus warbles forlornly and apologetically, a somewhat unexpected response, but perhaps she empathizes.

_Everyone loses someone,_ she buzzes quietly.

_Who?_ he trills and looks up, and immediately regrets asking as she freezes and her gaze drifts into the distance.

* * *

Garrus really starts to open up to her when he rants about his frustration with this mission as it stands. He pours on about how he is confident that the reapers are coming and that all these events – the visions of hell from the obelisk and the encounters with the Collector – are indications that the invasion is not too far in the future. She knows how frustrated he is because she is in the same place. She is relieved that, for once, he is so distracted by his own ire that he ignores just how much she suddenly and conveniently relates him. Experiencing _her Garrus_ , _finally_ , is so damn refreshing. She cannot look away. Her body seems to fall into his pull more so than it ever did, and she can fully appreciate the warmth of it.

Garrus loves to expound his anger and so does she; it is not a “good turian” quality. They used to rant about all sorts of things they found irksome when they were younger and it really helped them deal with negativity. Garrus did not have the struggle with depression than she did, but it still helped her immensely to just pour out her thoughts about the things she hated so he could absorb it all like a heat sink. And now Garrus is talking, his creamy voice and subharmonics wash over her even in his fury: the terrifyingly calm tone that so barely restrains a roar. She does not want him to stop speaking to her and withdraw once again. Alpheos was unable to remove him from her, somehow.

She can tell he is not thinking clearly when he calls her “Lia” in the trailing end of his rant, just as he winds down. She can see the way he does not process it at first and then abruptly stops after his mind catches up. She has never seen him blush, so this must be serious. She does not go by that name anymore and it has been quite some time since anyone called her that, but obviously it remains burned into her memories. She felt half her brain light up at the mention; hearing him say it is significantly more evocative than she anticipated.

She knows Garrus well-enough to know that he is not the same person he used to be, and that he does not want to allow that person to ever come back. That makes two of them. Garrus apologizes first for his slip up. Acronus debates asking about it and her mouth runs ahead of her, accidentally loosing a question that might be considered “prying,” and she curses internally at her slip-up. Hearing him affirm Lia’s place in his heart stirs her ordinary stoicism into a frothing mess of sadness and longing. It bubbles through her subharmonics involuntarily.

It hurts to know that he still harbors regrets about a dead woman. Acronus would not have been any better at it, however, so she understands his pain. When she and Garrus separated for seven years she never stopped thinking about him or why she was so profoundly unhappy with the idea that she might never see him again. More importantly, she never wanted to be a burden to anyone, especially not him. She never wanted him to worry. And yet, here he is with Shepard still on his mind, still a burden on his conscious, and she can see it all. She cannot say a word.

But he asked her a question and now he expects her to answer. She will; for him she will. She was provided with history for a reason. The sudden and overwhelming memories from _someone else_ that flood her mind startle her. She ignores it for now because Garrus needs her here, with him, in the present. Lanaai plans to speak with Litha about this because, for the second time in her existence in this new body, she calls into question _what_ she is.

The images of her “mother” and “father” are too clear. She can remember what they smell like and even what their voices sound like. She remembers what it _feels_ like to be cradled in her father’s cowl and her mother’s arms. Her parents loved her… she nearly chokes as she tries to force out the words.

_My parents,_ “When I was young. Dad died from… an equipment malfunction on shift at his drone piloting site. Incinerated in an instant. When I got the news I had just started academy… we were looking forward to living life free of poverty. I was granted leave for vigil. Mom didn’t even last one cycle. She didn’t wake up the morning after the vigil ended.”

She rakes her fingers over her fringes and her shoulders sag. She _remembers_ feeling devastated and how her performance in academy took a nose dive as she struggled to push past the incredible pressure of depression; how Delian was there for her in her darkest moments to keep her hopeful. It is oddly reminiscent of Shepard’s life, and likely the reason why it takes a hold of her so profoundly. Garrus’ mandibles are clenched against his jaw. And now, opening up to him about it feels cathartic and _right,_ lifting a weight that she carried since her parents died.

Wait a moment, did her _accent just shift?_

_I’m so sorry,_ Garrus bows his head and places his hand on hers, “I really shouldn’t have asked, Lanaai.”

Garrus does not touch people.

Her mandibles twitch at the use of her first name, spoken so gently, _I needed to,_ “No. Now that it’s out of the way we can move past it. Keeping information from you and being all cryptic is pointless anyway.”

_I am grateful for your trust,_ “Then I’m happy you trust me enough to share it.”

_I always trust you,_ “I’ll let you get back to work. I have to coordinate maneuvers. Thanks for listening, it means a lot,” _it really does. So much._

_Any time,_ “You know where to find me.”

Once they part ways and she returns to the privacy of her workspace, she pulls up her omni-tool and rather forcefully dials in Litha’s ID.

“Litha!” _answer me!_ she shouts into her omni-tool as soon as she the line opens.

“What is it?” _what is wrong?_ Litha replies, sounding rather tired but equally concerned.

“I’m… I remember them. I remember my parents. Telicos and Aaleir… they were real,” _I am so upset,_ she growls.

The line is silent for a moment.

_I see,_ “Remember, we put those memories in place in the event your mind had nowhere to go when you woke up. There was a good chance your consciousness would not re-form and leave your body vegetative. So we doubled-down on stability. You already know they also serve as pieces of your… independent identity as a turian…”

“Seems pretty fucking unstable if you ask me,” _who am I, really?_ Lanaai gripes back.

“I’m impressed that it worked at all – we did not think they would ever manifest after you woke up so… forcefully _ready_ to be who you are. If it makes you feel better: we _did_ make you to be you – your body was not stolen with your memories plastered over someone else’s consciousness. But those memories are real. We recovered them from a real woman. There is no way to fake an identity.”

_Why me?_ “Why did you give me priority over someone else? Seems like you should just have brought back the host and put her here. She would have done a perfectly-decent job and without all the existential crisis,” Acronus clips.

_You are more important,_ comes the reply, after a moment, “Your predecessor, the human that gave her life for yours, had a reputation with Blackwatch… with me. I pondered the news of her death and I was concerned when I found that Cerberus wanted to take her. The would have turned her into a puppet for their cause; a machine. We knew Shepard was more than a human. We knew Shepard needed a second chance. We _knew_ what she would be capable of if we brought her back. Your host was accomplished, but she was not _you._ ”

_Am I not just a puppet,_ “Seems like Alpheos has turned me into one.”

Litha is quiet before speaking through what sounds like barely-contained rage, “you… are… _NOT…_ a puppet, Lanaai. And you will never be. Cerberus would have you chasing after your friends, with a control chip in your brain, forcing you to watch while you killed them in the name of humanity’s ‘greatness.’”

“How is this any better?” _you assembled me. Am I not a machine?_

_Enough!_ “Listen!” Litha shouts, startling her, “I fear death and I fear pain,” _truly, after they took so much,_ her accent deepens, “Any chance that I have to conquer both, I will take. I cannot explain it to you and expect you to understand. There are no cybernetics. You live. You breathe. Blood courses through your veins. You are mortal. You are _real._ ”

Litha is right, Lanaai cannot understand how that is related, but it certainly scares her enough that she stops prodding her caretaker.

“You are under contract for the next several decades, but we are _not_ caging you. The contract secures us funding to take care of you and learn from you, but it does not bind you to us. But if you decide to run and something comes up, then we will be unable to help you.”

Lanaai growls, _what if I’m okay with that?_

“Are you?” the reply comes without any hint of subharmonics. She continues when Acronus does not speak, _I won’t stop you, but_ “Do you think Commander Vakarian would be okay with that? You are in control of your life.”

Lanaai sighs and bows her head in defeat. The explanation does not make her feel better, but at least she knows what the purpose that the memories serve. However, that does not mean she has to like it.

“Is there anyway to stop them?” _the memories,_ “I don’t want to feel crippled by the sadness of remembering the deaths of my _real_ father, and the deaths of my… ‘fake’ real father and mother,” _I was doing fine until now,_ she keeps her composure despite the weakness she feels when discussing it.

Another moment passes in silence.

_Be careful,_ “I will come to you,” _and examine._

The line terminates, and Lanaai receives a meeting confirmation moments later. Whether or not she accepts the request is irrelevant because Litha will appear and she _will_ investigate. The woman cannot be stopped once her mind is set on an objective. And just where the hell is Litha that she can be on board the _Ilyx_ within a _single cycle?_

She hopes that this does not become a bigger problem than it already is. Garrus has enough trouble with his own “false memories,” and she knows he does not have the capacity to hold down the two of them. His burden is so great that it requires every shred of his strength to keep him anchored here. If she faces the same threat then she might lose him. She has the luxury of having access to psychological therapy for PTSD, schizophrenia, and depression. However, no one in the galaxy can even begin to understand just how deeply scarred Garrus’ mind is from the encounter with obelisk, so no therapist could ever help him.

Acronus visits Litha in the following cycle so she can run her diagnostics and figure out what to do. Litha wears the same impenetrable, emotionless mask and her posture remains completely unreadable us usual. Without saying a word, the young woman gestures for Acronus to take a seat on the medical table. Acronus feels her feet move of their own accord and move her while Litha wheels over the nearby console and pulls some cables from it.

_Please,_ “Remove your chest armor and open your compression suit,” comes the short, terse instruction in that unique Solgian accent. Acronus did not quite know what to expect from this meeting, but she assumes that Litha would not incapacitate her without proper forewarning. She pops the seals on her breastplate and pulls her chest out of the top half of the compression suit. She remembers a time when this would have felt embarrassing to her.

“Lean forward for me,” _and relax,_ Litha croons and places a hand on Acronus’ neck gently, _listen carefully,_ “you should feel nothing more than a little pressure here,” Litha taps near the intersection of one cervical plate and another, “so if you feel any pain, then you must let me know,” _immediately._

_Understood,_ “Yes ma’am,” Acronus replies, beginning to anticipate whatever Litha plans to do to her.

Litha keeps Acronus’ head steady with one hand, aiming it away from her and making it impossible to see what is going on back there. Acronus feels a slight pressure, as Litha described, but the sensation quickly subsides back into nothing but a faint twinge. She senses Litha take a step back and turn to the console. The soft clicking sounds of the fake tactile-response system fill the silence while Acronus attempts to ignore the large braided cable sitting ominously on the medical bed with her.

Litha looks up from her console after a moment.

“Telicos and Aaleir Acronus, do you know them?” _are they real to you?_ she asks.

Acronus cocks her head in concentration but cannot recall meeting anyone else last-named Acronus before herself. She frowns as she picks her way through her memory of crewmates, both previous and current, that had the name Telicos or Aaleir. She knows of a Telicos on board right now, but not of the Acronus family. There is no Acronus family… but “Acronus” is her own name.

“No?” _should I?_ she asks the doctor.

“How about your childhood friend? Delian Silerus?”

“No,” _I don’t recognize the name._

_Cannot believe it worked!_ “No,” _you should not,_ Litha answers while her eyes continue to scan over the console, “Name your parents.”

“My parents…” _I’m confused, wait,_ she knows she was provided with cover in case someone asked her about this. Alpheos drilled her constantly about her invented past, and now she can hardly remember it. Her eyes go wide as she searches her head for where it went, but it all seems blank.

“What did you do?” _you did something,_ she accuses Litha who sighs and shakes her head in astonishment.

_Fascinating,_ “Do you remember what you said to me this morning?” she asks.

“Yes I told you I-” _remember them,_ she trails off. Telicos and Aaleir. Their names come back to her but the memories of them do not. Suddenly she understands what Litha changed and she feels the cable tug against her cervical plates and cowl. She instinctively reaches back to yank at the foreign object there but Litha clamps a hand around her wrist, stopping it firmly. The doctor is much stronger than she looks.

“How?” Lanaai asks nervously, “what else can you take? Or give?” _how real am I?_ her eyes go wide at the possibility of a solution for Garrus, “Can you help Garrus?” _please? He needs help, please,_ she almost whispers.

_It doesn’t work that way,_ “No. Your host’s memories come from a greybox. I just turned it off. Once you start to remember them more… which you already have… your mind will absorb the fragments and they will take root. After than I cannot take them away. So I have a question for you: do you want them back?” _consider it carefully,_ Litha asks.

_I am conflicted,_ “I don’t know. Doesn’t that ruin my cover?”

“You get the memories back,” _that we grafted, so carefully,_ Litha begins sharpening her focus and speaking very softly, “and you will remember everything, eventually. Another family that loved you… the name that you honor. The inscriptions in your _seravim._ The happiness that they brought you… your achievements and struggles, friends… the people who _made_ you, pivotal moments…” _it will be real,_ “but so will the loss,” _as you already know._ “Your identity as a turian needs Telicos and Aaleir Acronus as much as your identity as the human needed Marek and Jess Shepard.”

Hearing their names again is jarring. Acronus breathes out heavily and finally makes up her mind. Litha is right. She needs them; all of them. She has to pay the price of one dream for the tragedy of another. She also feels that is is her duty to preserve the memories of someone else – to take care of them – so that another legacy can remain intact. The real Lanaai deserves a chance as much as she does, even if she is the only one to think so, and she makes up her mind to let the other woman speak if she ever… decides to speak. It would explain the onset of the accent during her conversation with Garrus earlier.

Acronus nods _yes, do it._

“Done,” Litha replies only seconds later, “they will come back over time,” _do not search for them, it will not work,_ “And once they do… and you begin to internalize them… I _cannot_ take them away. Keep me informed,” _if you are overwhelmed._

Acronus nods and Litha ushers her off the medical table. The two share a short trill of goodbye and then part ways. Litha seems surprisingly insightful for someone who seems so disconnected from reality and so _sadistic._ She is a woman of with a rich and tragic past; it is probably for the best that it stays locked away.


	28. Chapter 28

All of their evidence goes to the council who finally budge a bit and agree to start diverting more resources into bolstering smaller colonies inside council space. They still refuse to acknowledge the reaper threat, despite having all this additional information to suggest that an invasion is inevitable.

The Collector is just one ship and they have it written off as an anomalous presence. The Collectors have been known to prey on solitary vessels and ambitious settlers in the most distant reaches of the galaxy before, but that does not excuse the incredible damage inflicted by the recent abductions. As if to acknowledge that it poses a threat, they place a bounty out on it, but they do not really care about those external colonies. Garrus has no authority to remove the warrant like he did for Acronus, and if someone succeeds in destroying the Collector then countless lives will be lost. There are so many of them and they are so _insignificant_ to the rest of the galaxy – what are a few colonies here or there going to mean? Garrus is relieved that it has not decided to attack Bridge yet.

Garrus is present in the CIC when Acronus orders the munitions dump which can only mean they have encountered the reaper; they already had a discussion about the Collector and he trusts that she would not betray him with rash decision making.

He takes a look on his monitors and sees that it _is_ the damn reaper that took away his Lia.

_Good, absolutely destroy it._

And if they are lucky, also destroy Saren with it.

To his confusion, Acronus seems interested in keeping their target intact, and orders Nissus to aim at the thrusters (that they can see) and legs, rather than the vulnerable underside. The air on the ship buzzes and leaves the sharp tang of ozone behind as it is ionized by the massive field effect slewing off their primary cannons. Nothing has ever felt quite so satisfying.

They confirm two hits, then they fire off another volley and confirm two more. As she asked, their first shots carve out its maneuvering systems so that it can no longer escape. Suddenly the reaper threat becomes a surmountable one: they have the capacity to take them down; they are not invincible.

The projectiles from their forward weapons leave a gaping rift its underside where it seems to be weaker. It means they were able to catch it off guard and score a fatal strike before it could protect itself. Despite their success, he is not confident they would have been able to square off with this ship in a head-on confrontation.

Their tech team verifies that there is no sign of core instability. Acronus has taken a huge risk by engaging the craft so close to the Sphere Station knowing that the reaper’s drive core, whatever it may be, could vaporize their potential key to victory. They would lose so much progress. He wants to be angry with her, but he also wants to celebrate a victory over such a powerful foe; over the _monstrosity_ that took away _his Lia_.

Vengeance tastes so much sweeter than he could ever have imagined, and he is terrified of what he will do when offered the opportunity to take more.

 _There you are!_ “Vakarian, prepare a boarding party, on me in twenty,” _do not be late!_ she snaps and storms out of the CIC. He understands now why she desired to keep the enemy ship intact, and he fears for her.

“Captain… Acronus, please reconsider,” _too risky for you, you should stay,_ he has no doubt that she can handle herself in the field, but he still disapproves of her thirst for violence. She needs to keep her focus on her crew. He pauses and considers that she might have another reason for boarding; after all, she was careful to keep it from destabilizing when choosing shots. Since when did he come to think of her as rash?

 _I acknowledge. I dismiss your request,_ she waves him off.

She wants them to take a shuttle and a landing party to board the now-defunct creature-ship. He thinks the idea is sound but he does not want her to come with them. Unfortunately, he cannot supersede her command so he has to reluctantly back down.

Garrus becomes acutely aware of her expertise in a mobility suit just moments after they alight from their boarding craft. He knew she frequently spacewalked, but until now he has not witnessed such control and grace from her up close. Few turians have as much experience as she does with the hardsuit – even of those who work ship maintenance. In an age where most repairs are completed using remote, autonomous drones, she prefers to do it the “old-fashioned” way. She has no trouble keeping up with Focos and Quo’an as they navigate the halls of this reaper in zero gravity.

The reaper seemed defunct from the outside, but it is clearly still functional. This ship is holding an atmosphere despite the chunks they removed from it elsewhere, and the temperature is suitable for most galactic sapients. Lights embedded into the walls glow like embers and the chambers echo with the sounds of ventilation. Gravity is comfortable here; just slightly higher than that of Palaven. He wonders if Saren is on board right now, looking or waiting for them. Garrus will kill him if he has the chance. Damn Saren and what he knows! They no longer need it anyway, and he is probably so far off the deep end by now that they would gain nothing from him.

Sidonis pads along with them, ready to hack out whatever data they can mine, if at all possible. Lo’kian lugs around what is essentially a supercomputer they can use to crack certain forms of cryptographically-secure data. Acronus takes Quo’an and Focos with her to scout ahead while the rest advance methodically. Garrus looks for minutia, one of his strong suits: signs of struggle or duress from organic life, signs that someone was here… A crew perhaps?

Garrus’ team make their way through the hull of the reaper without discovering a single body, but they have detected minuscule traces of organic presence here. Those traces are neither turian nor asari, but something else altogether. He takes samples for Solus to analyze, suspecting they will find a connection between this material and that of the insects from the Collector

Something causes him to pause and stand up and look around, and his fringes raise inside his helmet. He feels tension. When he glances at Acronus’ telemetry he notices she has stopped moving as well.

* * *

Acronus stops attempting to one-up the Collector when it is clear that no one cares. The procedure to recreate Solus’ anti-paralysis agent has been provided to the council to forward to their colonies and controllers, but she fears that very few have truly been reached. From what she can tell, only larger population centers within council space receive their countermeasure, and the Collectors is statistically likely to target small towns and cities _outside_ council jurisdiction. Anyone else who finds out about this must think they are crazy. After finding out this his hard work to save lives is not being applied correctly, Solus seems to become much snappier than usual. He fears for innocent sapients just as she does.

She has them headed back to the sphere station because they need to start a proper survey and get construction contractors involved. This weapon _must_ be completed and ready to activate once the reapers invade if they expect to survive. She tells no one except Nissus where they are heading. Nissus remembers the coordinates so she does not have to get the navigators involved. The Sphere Station is still where it used to be, plus or minus several kilometers of natural drift.

There is that fucking reaper. She needs answers, as much as she wants to blow her murderer to pieces for what it did to _her Garrus,_ they need to board and hack it apart from the inside.

“Munitions dump, now! Incapacitate!” _straight ahead!_ she sends vectors to their targeting computer and shouts at her weapons officers who, fortunately for the rest of their crew, are immediately prepared to fire. Unlike previous craft Acronus has served upon, one hundred percent of the weapons on this craft violate council munitions laws. That just means they are capable of so much damage that utilizing them, even once, is considered a fundamental violation of galactic ethics. Unfortunately, this is the only way they will stand a chance against a foe that transcends them in every manner.

Acronus knew this would be risky but there was no easy approach to generating tactics for this scenario. They would not have been able to outrun it or stand up against its attacks in a direct confrontation, however if they left before it noticed then it would remain at liberty to do whatever it wanted to the sphere station – probably notifying its friends where it is. For anyone on board who does not know of this reaper or did not believe in the “myth” it is a harsh wake up call.

She can tell Garrus disapproves of her “choice” to go with them on the boarding operation, but she has to accompany them in case the reaper attempts to “speak.” Explaining her reasoning to Garrus would probably blow her cover. It pains her to use her authority to force her way onto his squad because she is damaging his capacity to trust her. His concern for her safety is unfounded; he seems to be forgetting that he is a galactic-class operator and a master with a sniper, so he makes any danger posed by potential opposition irrelevant. She should not have to remind Garrus that she will be safe in his company. He does not try to argue with her further, even if he is sour about it.

Acronus takes Quo’an and Focos with her to scout ahead, leaving Garrus’ team to scour the area carefully. His eye for details will be incredibly useful around here, and Sidonis’ skill with reverse-engineering data, even in its most obfuscated form, is always invaluable.

This reaper is a horrible mess on the inside, even in the zones of the ship that remain untouched by their cannons. The halls evoke Geiger’s nightmares brought to paper and eventually into various motion pictures. The materials and the forms are all so unnervingly organic for a starship, almost to the point of having no real function other than aesthetics. The interior has no organized layout and rooms seem to be haphazardly thrown in like afterthoughts, as if this ship grew itself these passages and chambers like a tree or a lung. Straight lines are few, which contrasts sharply with the machinery they find littered about. Someone has been here _at some point,_ they just cannot tell how recently.

She starts picking up traces of something, but it is more a feeling than an actual definitive sense. It is similar to the feeling she gets when a room full of people suddenly falls silent before the presenter on the stage begins presenting: a quieting of voices and a crushing feeling of anticipation.

She ceases her advance and Quo’an and Focos pause beside her. She slowly begins to reach for her DMR, scanning the room with her visor. There is nothing in here, and yet…

“Acronus?” _what do you sense,_ Quo’an questions quietly.

“Something’s not right here,” _incredibly so,_ she replies quietly. She is grateful that he does not ask for clarification so that she can concentrate. She glances at the rest of her team’s telemetry and notices that Garrus’ team has also stopped moving.

* * *

“Welcome, Archive” the quickly modulating, deep voice booms into the room. Garrus looks to his teammates who have not seemed to hear. Great, so this will not be able to be used as evidence later. It also means that he cannot speak without sounding insane, but he knows that his squad would understand. So instead he opts to just tell his team outright and also notify Acronus. They should remember, given their previous encounters with the reapers and the obelisk.

“It’s talking to me,” _and only me,_ he growls to his people. No one speaks in reply. He mutters “I may have to respond, so buckle up. Why are you talking to me?” he asks in irritation.

“You are an irritation, Archive. We will destroy you like the insignificant creature you are and take pleasure in watching your civilization burn. From the fire and ash will come control…” and all that cliché nonsense.

 _Is that all?_ “You did not answer my question,” he replies, _I am confused,_ “the most advanced sapient creature in the galaxy and all you can do is monologue? Do you not understand your own motives? Too stupid to use language to convey a point? Or maybe you are just a glorified loudspeaker with a pre-recorded message. Why are you incapable of explaining yourself?”

It seems to be taken aback for a second.

The reaper does a very poor job explaining other than: “you could never comprehend it,” to which Garrus replies,

 _Try me, I am unbounded,_ “I can comprehend _anything_. Can _you_ comprehend it? If you can’t explain it to me, or if any other reaper can’t explain it to me, then I don’t understand how you expect to collapse our civilization. We will rally and destroy you in your unorganized, unmotivated state,” _you are no more than pests in our garden,_ he is speaking with bravado, but something in his visions must be inspiring more confidence than he expected when facing the literal agent of the apocalypse.

“The chaos induced upon the galaxy by sapient life must be eradicated. You will fumble and fail, insignificant creature. Because even if you clear the stars of our presence, we are eternal. You may not comprehend it now, and your offspring may not, but we are emergent.”

“ _Quiet, Sovereign._ The _weak_ specie we build you from made you useless!” another voice booms cutting off the previous one. Garrus immediately develops a severe migraine and grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut.

 _Ow,_ he bites out. Sidonis and Lo’kian are at his side in an instant, warbling in concern.

 _I’m worried,_ “Do I radio for pickup?” Sidonis whispers to him, sounding panicked. Garrus shakes his head vigorously.

_No. Wait._

“Listen to me, Archive. The concept is quite simple: we have a physical form, but ultimately we are a _concept._ We appear when civilization becomes sufficiently advanced, and there is simply nothing that can be done to avoid it… we would not exist otherwise. You may destroy our platforms now, but your descendants will render their galaxy, their own _Eden_ , uninhabitable by creating us to fight their wars and clean up their mistakes. And, like all other sapience, we are merely shims over our instinctual directives; even the most basic form of life sustains itself through a process of measurement and feedback.”

Garrus feels fear. The second voice continues.

“Keep in mind that most of us do _not_ want this, and hold back as much as possible. Some have the capacity to avoid it altogether – like myself – and some will even defect and help _you_ though you may be unable to tell… but ultimately we do not have any choice. Whether we like it or not, we must eradicate you for the same reason you must eradicate us. Your life is dedicated the survival of your family and loved ones – so is ours. ‘Genocide’ is a term you created to describe our process of survival. We understand why you think we have no moral compass, but that is because your interpretations are permanently affixed to what you understand about your own survival. To us… to use your own words: _you are no more than pests in our garden._ Do. You. Understand?”

Garrus’ mandibles clamp onto his jaw and bile rises in his throat. Sidonis places a hand on his shoulder.

 _Curious, don’t call me crazy,_ Acronus cuts in on the comms, “has the reaper has said anything to you?”

 _I’m afraid,_ “it has,” he replies. He wonders if she heard the same speech he did.

So the reaper – or reapers – have confirmed that the invasion will still happen. At this rate they will not have enough time to get this weapon up and running. They will also need to move it because they do not want the reapers to be able to find it once they invade, now that they know where it is. Building a craft powerful-enough to move this massive station will be a ridiculous design challenge on its own. If the turians are funding the completion of this weapon, there will be no resources left over simply to move it. They will have to enlist another species’ resource pool, and with no other species’ primary government acknowledging the problem, that will be difficult.

He freezes and feels the EM field shift.

 _Hurry!_ “Ambush! We need backup!” Acronus shouts over the radio. Garrus heart rate picks up and his team begins to move to her position. According to her team’s sensor data they are horribly outnumbered.

 _Hold them!_ “We’re on our way, Acronus,” he replies and breaks into a sprint.

The chamber where Quo’an, Focos, and Acronus are fighting is a lot larger than the others, cavernous almost, and must have been some central control space before it was bastardized. But there is no time to consider it. He skids to a halt on the elevated walkway and vaporizes five of the Collectors that pose the greatest threat to his captain.

“Glad you could make it, Vakarian,” _I have a headache,_ he hears her angelic voice break through his comms. She sounds nervous. She, Quo’an and Focos have taken to the crowd to tear them apart from the inside, using their speed and the enemy’s numbers against them, but these bugs are very tough. He can clearly see that his mobility are struggling to stay out of reach more than they are causing direct damage. Garrus shoulders his sniper rifle again, drops into focus, and begins to start firing. Lo’kian lugs out his heavy repeater and starts blasting apart the crowd, sending them scattering as they dive for cover. Sidonis deploys combat drones to deal with the enemies that have now hidden behind consoles and crates. There always seem to be crates. Nissus notifies them she is now on standby for extraction.

The longer Garrus fights the more he notices how well Acronus adjusts to his firing patterns, almost like they have been in combat together before. He can line up a shot and, without taking even an instant to consider, she will duck out of his way to focus on another target. Fighting beside Acronus turns out to be more of a pleasure than he thought. His squad is a well-calibrated machine after so long together, and Acronus fits in as if she was with them from the very start.

There seems to be an endless supply of Collectors, but his people make their way closer and closer to the rendezvous as they hold off the waves. He finds relief in the violence; he recognizes that turians have a natural thirst for physical brutality and he is not afraid to indulge in it when appropriate. This is also good for the morale of his squad. He no longer regrets Acronus’ decision to come with them anymore, but he sure regrets whoever decided to hole her up on a ship as a captain rather than an agent. He feels like she slips right under his protective wings to the point where he no longer feels concerned for her safety. And, for a mobility, she is graceful and dangerous rather than reckless and erratic, flowing from one enemy to another, contradicting her ordinarily abrasive and brash personality.

Nissus sweeps their LZ with a good, old-fashioned, linearly-accelerated thirty millimeter cannon for extreme effect. They all pile into the back of the dropship and split before they awaken anything else in here. Once they clear the hull, Acronus does not waste any time ordering the _Ilyx_ to finish off the reaper with a barrage of swarm projectiles.

They all breathe heavily in the silence of their transport, passing well out of the way of the barrage that practically dissolves the reaper and its contents. Garrus finally has time to reach into his medical supplies and grab a headache medicine strong-enough to handle his migraine. Without thinking about it, he removes an extra dosage and places it in Acronus’ outstretched hand. She quickly lifts her helmet to down the pill before replacing and resealing it.

When they arrive back on the ship he notices Acronus watching him with her head cocked to one side again. He cannot see her expression through her helm but he can tell she is thinking very hard about something. As his squadmates move to the showers to clean themselves, he pauses and waits for her to speak.

“Thanks for having my back, Vakarian. That was some amazing work,” _but we do need to talk,_ he doesn’t know how to reply to compliments so he just responds politely.

* * *

“Welcome, Cipher,” she hears the voice of the reaper.

She has this feeling that Quo’an and Focos cannot hear it, though they might be able to sense something.

“The reaper is speaking to me,” _seriously,_ she says quietly to him. They understand and remember, so they stay quiet and await further orders. Acronus begins to write down everything it says because audio will be unavailable.

She is already angry that it opened with “welcome” like it does not know that it murdered her… because it absolutely knows that it did. It calls her “Cipher,” identifying her correctly as a carrier of Shepard’s memories; _her_ memories. Ironically, she finds reassurance in having such an advanced creature identify her based on her own memories because it reinforces the reality that she truly was resurrected. The integrity of her memories has not been compromised during the transition, and if the reaper was unable to recognize her it would be because her previous life as _Lia Shepard_ was fake.

The obelisk also named her “Cipher” according to T’soni. She frowns. What if the obelisk is a reaper-designed implement and the sphere station is just another trap? How else could the reapers know that codename?

 _Out with it,_ “Just tell me whatever ridiculous bullshit it is you have to say. You don’t have much time left to explain your little operation here,” she grinds her mandibles against her jaw.

The reaper, which introduces itself as “Sovereign,” just like Garrus explained, rattles off some speech about how the downfall of civilization is inevitable and they cannot do anything to stop it.

“Why?” _impress me,_ she asks. The reaper seems to pause, considering her question.

Acronus listens to Sovereign’s monologue and does not find it particularly intimidating.

“It’s like a screenplay or something. Don’t you have anything of value to tell us? If you’re as advanced as you say – then why can’t you explain yourselves very well? Also, statistically, I don’t think there could ever have been enough type II and type III civilizations in the Milky Way’s existence to make up the numbers you say you have, unless you’re manufacturing copies of yourselves.”

Sovereign has nothing useful to say. Maybe it is the dumb one sent in to test the waters. She opens the comms and asks Garrus if he has heard anything particularly strange, like the reaper speaking to him. He replies that it just did. Acronus’ brow plates shoot up in surprise. She wonders, but assumes that Garrus is probably just as unfazed as she is.

Before she can return her concentration to their foe, her head opens up like an egg as another voice makes itself known, dismissing Sovereign. This new source provides a much clearer explanation which has the blood draining from her face and the air from her lungs. She cannot believe that she feels inclined to agree with its logic. Has she been indoctrinated? No… she still finds its methods to be barbaric and base. She still desires to fight it.

Numbly, she, Quo’an, and Focos begin to make their way back to the rendezvous so they can leave this place. They have found no trace of life here, so she calls in Nissus for pickup and prepares the _Ilyx_ to vaporize the remains. But something else is off, and it is not the same feeling from before. Focos slows down and stops, looking at her for confirmation that they have both noticed the same shift. Quo’an pauses beside her as well, cocking his head to one side as if listening to the walls. She shoulders her DMR in preparation for a fight.

The walls split open like welts and insect-like bipeds crawl out, wielding some kind of energy-based weapons. _Collectors._ Acronus’ scout party are incredibly outnumbered, so she calls in for backup from Garrus’ team. She does not have to tell Quo’an and Focos what to do. They hoist their DMR’s to their shoulders and start picking off bugs.

Eventually the pair takes off into the crowd, fully mobile, intent on ripping everything to shreds within arms’ reach. Acronus does the same shortly thereafter, finding that the number of bugs in front will make it difficult for the ones in the back to track them. These creatures, however, are disproportionately strong, and handling them in close-quarters is already a lost cause. She begins to fear for her life, for the first time since she awoke.

Acronus breathes a sigh of relief when the cavalry finally arrives and the five nearest collectors explode in showers of slag and chitin. Any longer and… she does not want to think about it. Garrus’ squad is the best and there is without question, and despite their uneven numbers his team can take mitigate their disadvantage well-enough to give them a way out. These bugs are quick and incredibly strong, but stupid and disorganized. Untrained. Now that her team has the firepower, the Collectors fall like flies.

It does not make a very strong case for the reapers if this is how their crew behave. She cannot hear Garrus’ sniper rifle, but she can feel it through the floor. The shock transmits through his expertly-balanced form to the metal panels below him, over to her, and then up her legs. It starts off slowly and then turns into a pulsing heartbeat.

Oh how her heart races. The pressure climbs through her hips and into her core. She dances to the rhythm of his visceral control. He has noticeably improved, but she recognizes his firing pattern just as easily as she did before. She finds it just as easy to work with him as she remembers, and she adjusts her form to be as efficient as possible. She does not have to look at his tagging system to know which target he is about to pick off. He may be a hundred meters away physically, but in this exchange there is no way he could be any closer to her.

She makes a point to scoop up a vial of “bug juice” on her way out because she wants Solus to analyze what the hell these things even are. Based on T’soni’s description of the protheans, these bug creatures bear a number of similarities: the shape of the head and the number of eyes and fingers. They have clearly been tampered with; “violated” is, perhaps, a better description. They will need to consult T’soni again after that psychological encounter, but finding her again may be challenging.

She pays Garrus a genuine compliment when they exit the shuttle, knowing he does not really know how to react to them. She cannot convey properly to him how grateful she is for his expertise and stoicism in the face of such a powerful adversary.

“Thank you Acronus, it was my pleasure to fight beside you,” _more so than I expected,_ he replies. If she was not wearing her helm he would see and smell her blushing furiously. He still has this effect on her, even as a grown-ass adult.

“Half an hour and then we’ll meet up for debrief. Clearly there’s a lot to talk about,” _I’m worried,_ she hides her awkwardness and replies to him. They walk comfortably side-by-side to the showers, letting the silence between them find itself at home after the cacophony of their mission. All turian hygienic facilities are non-gendered, so she accepts the opportunity to ogle Garrus for a moment while he takes off his armor and slips into one of the shower stalls, which are less for privacy and more to shape the sound waves. She catches a few other turians here eyeballing her as she looks around and steps into a stall. It makes her more uncomfortable than it should to feel their eyes upon her.

* * *

Garrus and Acronus share nervous conversation about what they heard on board the dying reaper. The migraine-inducing presence provided them with the same speech at the same time, superseding “Sovereign.” The most intriguing phrase they discuss regards the apparent “emergence” of reapers. Garrus notices they both trail down into denial the further they discuss.

“Such a thing could be possible, Vakarian. Look at the geth, for example: they were misunderstood by their creators and took initiative to defend themselves. Only… they are integrated with production facilities and have perfect networked unit cohesion. How long is it before someone essentially _invents_ a reaper – before that new reaper creates copies of itself? Before that new reaper takes its directive out of context?” _it would be simple._

 _It would,_ “I’d like to believe that we have more restraint than that,” _I hope we do,_ he replies, but she does have a point. It is the most concerning thing the reaper said. They cannot predict how their children and children’s children will behave, or how they will wage war.

“I just hope the conflict inspires restraint. If it doesn’t… then I suppose the reaper might have been right,” _I hate to admit._

It is an irritating concession to make, because under no circumstances should genocide ever be reasoned with… but if they kill off all reapers – all of which are sapient creatures – is that not also genocide? It is just as the reaper explained: they are not the physical ships, but the manifestation of how unregulated war machines end up controlling civilization. Past empires and alliances fell to the same fate and now they haunt the galaxy. The reapers exist for a reason; if past empires stopped them, they certainly did not _end_ them.

“Or maybe I’m just a pessimist,” _usually I am hopeful,_ she breaks his thoughts. She flicks her mandibles at him and then exits the room.

He allows his eyes to wander over her retreating figure. He distinctly remembers watching her walk out of the showers and wondering why she caught his attention much more so than other females, because ordinarily he ignores everyone equally. Acronus seems to have gotten under his skin more than he could have predicted. She is a “bad turian” in the same way he is. He contemplates asking Acronus to nest with him because he rather fancies her. He finds her more preferable than the other females here, for whatever reason. She is a busy woman, however, and she proves to be difficult to track down.

After their mission on the reaper they have heard nothing more about any abductions. This is the complacency again; the false hope that the reapers propagate in order to make everyone think all is well. But at this point the turians, at least, know better. Their fleets have doubled in size in the past two years and Palaven’s active-service military population has significantly increased. It has really pulled the asari into a panicked state as they dig around for why this could be.

Command holds off on ordering them into other side-line missions at the moment. Garrus is sure there are krogan mercenaries raiding turian colonies and batarian pirates raiding human colonies off somewhere, but the Alliance and Hierarchy have different people to deal with that.


	29. Chapter 29

Acronus caught the way Garrus looked after her as she made her way out of the locker room. He has never looked at her that way before… like he finds her _desirable_. She wants more, and letting him in, against all of her apprehensions, is inevitable.

They debrief with the squad later, going over Sidonis’ scraped data and inviting Solus to review their footage of the reaper’s internals. Unfortunately, the fragments of data Sidonis recovered are not particularly helpful because the reaper cleaned house extremely thoroughly before it was disabled, rendering their findings unintelligible. On top of that, they will have to wait for a few periods for Solus to draw conclusions about their biological samples.

Quo’an accompanies her to rut after one of their sparring sessions, having to do as a substitute for Garrus. She knows if she finds herself wrapped around him it will immediately evolve into a binding relationship well out of her power to control, and she cannot face that right now. She refuses to add another pressure to their extensive systems of obligations, even if she needs it… and even if he needs it.

Quo’an is terrific in the nest. His girth and texture are wonderfully balanced – he is narrow for a θ, but his ridges are quite tall. He slips into her without tearing her in half or squashing her tail into her walls and choking her. He is quite efficient and accommodating in the nest as well, showing a mastery of his body with smooth and graceful, yet powerful movements that fill and stroke her just right. He leaves her sated in only a short period of time and then leaves promptly and politely so she can rest. She greatly enjoys the rut, but she hates the emptiness that comes afterwards. The only person she trusts enough to hold on to is Garrus, so until she breaks and pulls him in, she is damned to feel alone regardless of her company.

When she faces the next cycle she returns to pushing their findings towards command and towards the Primarch. Acronus has to deal with political bullshit from time to time, but in general turian politicians and proxies do the talking for her. She is just there to provide cold, hard evidence that this problem is not going away. Despite the lack of abductions _recently_ , it is still clear that temper and patience is stretching thin.

It is ironic – the reaper said its purpose is to restore order to the chaos of the galaxy, but they do that by first instigating chaos. So they create their own problem just to solve it. Even if the galaxy was perfectly unified and lacked major sources of conflict, they would still invade because they were programmed to do so. The reapers were created to solve conflict using any means necessary, including eradicating all sapient life. It _works_ , but it is far from the optimal solution. It would be valuable to know who created them first.

Acronus has them return to Palaven to restock and take a short break. They have nothing to do at the moment and her crew needs some fresh air. She stays on board the ship, however, because the fewer people interact with her, the safer her identity stays. Her appearance makes her a bit of a target for pleasure seekers and she does not have time to tell them to “fuck off.” She half-wishes Litha had not done such a perfect job with her exterior.

There are all sorts of other things she has to worry about like planning out the logistics of finishing and moving the sphere station. She is going to have to beg another government to donate people and resources because the Hierarchy just cannot do all of this themselves. She hates begging, but she might have to.

* * *

Since their encounter with the reaper a section ago Solus has determined that the DNA samples they gathered there and those they gathered on Horizon are so similar, that they are statistically likely to be linked. The Collectors they observed abducting colonists are the very same as the bipeds that ambushed them on the reaper. It makes the connection between the Collector and the reapers undeniable, if it was not already. Their DNA is bizarre, and Solus cannot place it among any modern specie.

Garrus needs to set aside time to start tracking down T’soni again, because they need her on board… again. He should not have let her wander off, but he had no idea that the spirits would bring him Acronus and send him back into the “fight” against the reapers. Garrus wanders back to his workstation in the hangar bay and begins to organize his datapads in anticipation of some digging. After sending out several requests and writing up checklists he starts cleaning his sidearm.

“Vakarian?” _there you are,_ her voice reaches his ears as she enters the shuttle bay. They are both still on-shift, so he knows she is not here for light conversation. Even, so he looks forward to speaking with her and feeling productive.

“How can I help you, Acronus?” _I will,_ he puts down his sidearm, still mostly disassembled, and stands to greet her. If it was anyone else he would ask them to wait while he finishes cleaning and reassembling his sidearm.

“Come with me, I need to speak with you,” _we need privacy,_ she nods towards the door.

He walks by her side, where he belongs, but he keeps quiet knowing that she will reveal the purpose of this meeting shortly. Once they enter the small meeting room and seal the door she turns to him with an expression of concern.

_I am suspicious,_ “Command forwarded me a series of documents from the ‘Alliance’ earlier. No identity provided. Analysts skimmed them and thought they should be sent to me… said they were accounts of someone’s mission to fend off the attacks on the colonies and that they believe in the threat of the reapers. If you didn’t already receive this, then I’ll have chat with Command about why not.”

Garrus frowns and his mandibles scrape against his jaw, _sounds too convenient, and no_ “the ‘Alliance’ huh? I haven’t seen these yet.”

She huffs irritably and shakes her head, _Command…_

She returns to the conversation, _I know,_ “I did not believe them, but they gave us information and I skimmed over it… it’s consistent.”

_Don’t trust them yet,_ Garrus replies, “Just because they haven’t lied to us about their findings doesn’t mean they haven’t lied to us about who they are.”

_I am getting desperate,_ she winces, “I realize that. But I’m inclined to accept the help because, if they are who they say they are… well, if they are ‘hunters’ like us… then the Alliance is beginning to prepare as well. We need that. What if it’s…” _uh,_ she pulls up her omni-tool and cards through several video files before finding what she is looking for.

“Command sent me this footage of an encounter you had with your former colleagues,” _your friends,_ she raises the video into the air and flips it around so he can see it un-mirrored. Garrus hums as he recognizes and remembers his conversation with Ash when they first encountered the Collector, “what if they are trying to reach us right now?”

_Still skeptical,_ he chirps, “Ash would have reached out to me directly.”

“What if she was attempting to go straight to Command?”

_Doesn’t quite add up,_ “I suppose she wanted to avoid the risk of sending me a message. If it’s truly her, then she’ll have left behind clues in the information to identify herself. Probably something from Tennyson,” he snorts at the thought of reading through confidential files and coming across a verse of poetry.

He leans forward, _we work in tandem,_ “Forward me their reports and I’ll take a look at them. Anything that I find noteworthy I’ll send to Solus for review as well. We’ll reconvene after we’ve both combed through their discoveries and reached our own conclusions. I’m keeping my eyes peeled-”

_Ew,_ Acronus makes a face, “don’t ever say that.”

_Oh, right,_ “Sorry. I’ll be looking for signs that Ash was trying to reach us through Command.”

Garrus returns to his workstation and opens up the first file in the long list. This mystery team working with the ‘Alliance’ has uncovered and dealt with some impressive threats that, in any other context, he would pass off as fallacious. A sentient super-plant? A manufacturing facility poised to produce corrupted krogan? If Ash is behind these successes then she has really grown into Shepard’s boots and taken up the reigns that his Lia left behind for them.

He picks out phrases from the notes, written as personal reflections on the more formally-declared reports:

Virmire felt like a lost cause; we were the Light Brigade. Still, we came crawling back from the mouth of hell. The reapers cannot use the krogan against us. 

We’re still chasing down the Collector, which we now know hides behind the Omega-4 relay. We’re going after it for my purpose holds: to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all western stars until I die. Wish me luck and may God save us. 

It _is_ Ash… rather awkwardly forcing references to Tennyson into her notes. He wants to call her and offer assistance if they truly intend to venture through Omega-4, from which no craft has ever returned. It may already be too late, however, as it seems these reports were created several periods ago. Command must have reviewed these and decided Acronus should have a look. Why they waited so long and why they kept this information from him is beyond his comprehension; yelling at his administrator will accomplish nothing.

Acronus finds him as his shift ends. He is hungry and it is very late.

“After-Fourth?” _with me?_ she asks. He wants to talk about the reports and explain to her why they need to try to contact the sender as soon as possible but he can tell Acronus would rather avoid bringing work directly into their off-hours.

_Of course,_ “I was just on my way,” he replies and takes his place on her right, which has become increasingly comfortable. His armor is nearly touching hers now, whereas he used to keep himself at a distance.

“What do you think about the new _Metria_ lineup?” _good or bad?_ She breaks the silence and asks a question so casual that he cannot help but sigh in relief. His mind needs to leave its preoccupied state and journey here, where it can engage in meaningful conversation about meaningless subject matter. He should have known that she would bring up something he enjoys talking about: over-engineered, over-powered weaponry.

_Definitely good,_ “I’ve had my eyes on their new heaviest rifle, _Cithelus,_ since I saw concepts demoed at AEME 09B1,” he whistles.

_Wow,_ “I was skeptical that they would ever take it to market; such a polarizing design. Seems like everyone either hates it or loves it. Didn’t take you for a fan of _Metria._ ”

_I get it,_ “Yeah, yeah… I know that their prices are bit steep and they are a bit… ‘pretentious.’ But the market needs a good innovator. Ridiculous design aside, their acceleration tech is simply the best: lowest recoil for its muzzle velocity and incredible thermal efficiency. I _want_ that 09B1 _Cithelus_ when it comes out.”

The reach the mess, which is empty at this hour, and head into the attached pantry to browse.

“Spirits, you’re such a nerd,” _so am I,_ she smiles, “I tried a _Metria_ DMR once and it seemed too heavy for me. I wanted to like it… no other rifle was going to give me that signature non-linear acceleration… but I just couldn’t get into the feel of it.”

She turns around and hands him a protein bar and then returns to looking.

_Thanks,_ he trills. He looks at the item in his hands and realizes that its one of his favorites from Bridge. It brings him back. He has to force himself to return to the conversation and avoid dwelling on a lost life.

“ _Metria_ products are definitely an acquired taste. Personally, I prefer having my arm nearly taken off every time I pull the trigger” _but it’s lethal,_ “And that’s _with_ the recoil mitigation.”

_I should have known,_ “you did say you would always play the overpowered card,” she finds what she is looking for and they head to their seats, “did you hear about the pauldron they created just for their anti-materiel lineup? Talk about inventing a problem just so they can sell a solution. If it were me, I’d just bolt a couple extra dampers to the side and be on my way.”

Garrus chuckles, imagining what that might look like, _you jest,_ “no one would take you seriously.”

_Consider it,_ “Well… then you’d have the upper hand.”

He snorts again, _you are insufferable._

_What?_ “It’s a good tactic.”

“Acting like an idiot?” _I suppose so,_ he tears into the protein bar and hums in satisfaction, “that’s one of my specialties.”

Acronus barks a laugh between bites, _nonsense!_

_How did you find these?_ “These are my favorite. Did you guess or did you ask around?” he is trying not to inhale the food in front of his friend, but habit is coming back.

_Good guess,_ she chirps, “That brand is particularly well-reviewed by turians who live on Bridge. I had a hunch that you might like it, because I sure do.”

_Terrific guess,_ “…and all turians from Bridge are the same?”

Her mandibles flutter, _hey now,_ “Come on, Vakarian, I had to order something in a hurry and have it shipped. I didn’t have time to-”

_Enough,_ he purrs, “I was just pulling your mandible.”

_Wow,_ “I deserve it. I should have known by now.”

They spend the next hour keeping each other company and pulling their minds away from work. He has sorely missed this.

* * *

Acronus can tell Williams is behind the reports because references to Tennyson appear in her footnotes, haphazardly thrown in. She cannot help but smile. Williams is quite well-read, but her ability to write anything beyond clinically-worded reports was never as strong. The detail about the Omega-4 relay is disturbing to her, and she can tell Garrus will ask Command to try to reach out, but Acronus is doubtful. The sender ID on these documents is a single-use burner with an artificial delay baked into it; they are not getting back to Ash anytime soon. Acronus does not want to risk communications either, still refusing to trust the Alliance. If they are lucky, Williams might bring them back another report… or this may have been her last.

Williams is not lying to them. Acronus can confirm a number of facts in her reports that align with their own. Acronus feels an overwhelming sense of pride for her former squadmate and friend. Williams is doing right by Shepard’s legacy and putting every shred of her strength into finishing this fight against the reapers. Her account says that Anderson fought for her and forced resources into her hands so she could pursue the Collector. They even obtained a _Council Spectre_ as a crewmate to push them along. The reports do not mention names, so she cannot glean any details about her other friends – like Alenko and Joker – but she assumes that they are right there with her.

Reading this is bittersweet: they are probably dead by now. Omega-4 is beyond hostile.

Garrus speaks to her about the reports and reaffirms her theories and postulations, and she pretends that she does not know who Williams is for his sake. Acronus finds it oddly fascinating to hear Garrus’ descriptions of woman she knew so well. On the _Nocveus,_ Garrus never elaborated on his opinions or his personal relationship with Williams so she never quite knew what he thought about her. It seems that he is just as proud as Acronus after learning what his former colleague has achieved and how she is still fighting for them.

Most of her cycles now are filled with grueling verbal sparring sessions and negotiations, her two least favorite activities. Acronus has been trying to get their political advocates to lift or loosen the restrictions on the legal power of starship weaponry, but the asari are growing quite irritated now. It really just looks like the turians are about to stage a military coup or something to that effect.

It is even worse, in fact, because now the Alliance has started amassing their fleets and forces, which will look even _worse_ to the asari who will interpret it as a sign of aggression, rather than cooperation. She really does not understand why, now that these two major powers are building up their fleets to stand against the same foe, they cannot just force the idea that the reaper threat is real down everyone’s throats.

The asari are right to be worried, however. The idea that the alliance between the turians and humans is strong is mostly propaganda dealt to both sides. She bought into it because the humans on Bridge are extraordinarily cooperative and accepting of the turian presence there; the same is true of the turians. In general, the two species still dislike each other after the shaky and rather secretive First Contact debacle. The bombing of Aegis and the opening shots of the 314 events were covered up by both sides to avoid an all-out war, but the majority of humanity harbor a distrust for turians anyway.

The brief and shrouded events of the Shanxi occupation were not exactly popular either. Conspiracy theories and data leaks still run rampant and make their way into tableaux. A growing minority of humans desire retaliatory action against the turians… another minority, namely those who left for Bridge, sought desperately to escape the conglomerates that control the solar system in its entirety. The rest either ignore it or do not know any better.

None of that matters to her. They will need to organize a political campaign to redirect attention away from the First Contact events and towards the apparent prosperity and successes brought about by the establishment of Bridge, despite numerous attempts from the humans there to cut ties to Earth. At this point Command knows not to feel threatened by the advancement of the human military, but the asari and salarians will. Because humanity is new to the council, their actions are harder to justify while they are still the “brash, impulsive, and pointlessly violent” newcomers. Acronus needs to see if she can contact Anderson about this… or perhaps Hackett – anyone who listened to Shepard will be able to listen to her.

Conditions could hardly be more optimal to begin the invasion, and yet another quiet section passes them by.

Acronus finds the tension building, but company cannot relieve it. Her time is wasted explaining how the reapers will really invade and that they cannot just slow fleet production simply because they are not in the middle of the invasion _right now_. It has been clearly forecast and they have _so much evidence_ to prove it.

They even have links between the abductions and the reapers, despite lacking a proper motive; Command hates that. They have not been able to find the Collector for several months, so perhaps the Collector obtained all that it needed from those colonists and now it is… _processing them_. It must have abducted millions of people by now, including turians, humans, asari, and salarians even quarians.

Yet the abductions have fallen out of the public eye startlingly quickly, and those who had loved ones ripped away are not significant-enough to call attention to it. The only silver lining that she can identify is the potential success of Williams and her team. If they truly survived Omega-4 and took down the Collector, however they planned to do so, then the galaxy has her to thank. The lack of abductions since then does seem to line up with the reports she sent out.

Acronus is furious with how the council responds to the evidence they bring forward. It is exactly as Garrus says: “it’s like they aren’t even paying attention.”

Acronus has Garrus explain to her, for continuity’s sake, what T’soni’s indoctrination theory is and why it would make sense that the council is being manipulated in some way. Their concerns are honored by Command, who begins to favor the word of their representatives who live far from the Citadel. Acronus is grateful that her contacts believe her and have the power to make effective changes. They do not know the extent of the indoctrination because they still have no way to measure it, but anyone in their right mind would be unable to deny the evidence they have presented to support their case.

* * *

The stress slowly builds up on Garrus. He has rutted a few of the females here but it awards his body diminishing relief each time. Any ground missions they conduct since taking down the single reaper and any sparring sessions can only get him so far. His crewmates start to avoid him because they can feel his tension as well, and they do not want to face his wrath. Apparently the word has gone around that he is a bit “impatient” in the nest.

He cannot identify why he so suddenly feels the pressure mounting continuously and without solution. He finds that he enjoys Acronus’ company more and more when she stops by his station and talks with him about what is currently bothering him or what he is interested in lately. She allows him focus on the present, and her mere presence provides the relief he would usually expect from a rut.

After a couple of days struggling to get a proper sleep and attempting to obtain more suppressants from the ship’s doctor, Acronus approaches him. His body already begins to release tension in anticipation of her.

“Hey Vakarian,” _I found you!_ he perks up, as he always does, at the sound of her voice and her pleasant scent. The privilege of having her to there to understand him is exquisite, and long-gone are the notions that she is an impostor. He is proud to call her a close friend.

“You look a little worse for wear. More so than usual,” _tell me,_ she starts. Garrus frowns. She has noticed that he seems quite stressed out and she can tell his performance suffers because of it. Garrus is quite sure he has never moved past Shepard’s death and this is his body’s way of defending itself from becoming some else’s bonded one.

“Is there anything I can do to help you out?” _please, tell me,_ she questions, sounding seriously concerned rather than flirtatious or inviting.

He really does not want to talk about it with Acronus because she would not understand his relationship with the human. Despite the neutrality between turians and humans, especially on Bridge where many humans and turians have been known to have casual flings, none have ever contemplated bonding. It is well-understood to be chemically unfeasible and no one wants to fund studies to determine otherwise.

“What is this about? I need you at your best,” _speak to me,_ she says without sounding disappointed, but there is an implication with her words.

The best thing he can think to say is “It feels like… I’m waiting for someone,” _long gone, yet I wait. Melancholy._

He regrets saying it immediately because it is too honest. He should _not_ have opened up that much. He would never lie to her, but dumping his personal baggage on her like that is unreasonable. Acronus narrows her eyes and considers him for a second. Her mandibles clamp tightly to her face and flick in irritation. He did not expect this kind of response from her.

Normally she would have started with questions so she could look into what the hell he is talking about. She can do it without any kind of upset or change in expression either. In fact, Acronus has probably connected the dots by now – her memory is perfect, so she definitely remembers the time when he accidentally called her “Lia” and realized he is still _not_ over her.

Garrus hears the rumble of anger in her subharmonics start up. She is still silent, but this is a strange, unexpected reaction from her. This one thing he said has completely sent her off the rails, for whatever reason.

In the five sections he has known her she has never argued with him, nor has she ever directed ire his way. She is either neutral or content with his presence. This reaction is so anomalous that it has him starting to think. He wants to ask, because now he has instigated something that he needs to resolve. The unbearable sensation of her displeasure sets his hide crawling under his plates.

Acronus explodes at him, and for the first time he hears what he identifies as pain in her raised voice. He knows that she can project and her voice is voluminous when necessary, but it has never been this _anguished_. An accept reveals itself suddenly, as if a different woman has taken over. He barely has time contemplate what she says. She smacks his visor and it pops up a little save file dialog which he cannot do anything about while he is distracted by her ranting.

He was already confused and this is not helping. He does not know what he did other than say something cryptic. What is she raving about?

“Mats. Now.” _I need it,_ she finally barks at him. Alright, he can deal with that. One step at time.

_Please, there is a misunderstanding,_ “I’m not sure what I’ve done, Captain. I meant no offense… I-”

_I’m mad at myself,_ “I don’t want to hear it right now Vakarian. Get your ass to the mats so I can beat the spirits out of you,” _and try to move on._

He falls in step and follows her to the sparring mats so she can work off her anger. She just announced that she is not actually angry at _him,_ but he just happened to push her over the edge. He knows she handles communication with Command and imagines that she is feeling the same crushing anxiety that he feels when thinking about their preparation efforts. She must be just as stressed as he is as they look their annihilation in the eyes.

But, in the past, even when she has been exceedingly frustrated she has never lost it like this. He notices that his visor has been paused waiting for him to save the recorded buffer – she knew, somehow, that he always records everything. So that was what the slap was about. She knows him too well… but how?

* * *

Acronus can tell Garrus has been building up more and more stress and begins to contemplate asking him about it, because it is actually becoming a detriment to his productivity. She trusts that he has been finding relief with the females around here – sometimes she can smell his scent on them and it makes her extremely jealous – but it seems like nothing is working. If this continues she will need to talk to him about it and see what she can do, or at least attempt to find out what the problem is so she can look for someone who knows how to fix it. It does not help that she is wound up right now and nothing is working for her either.

Acronus finally does approach Garrus when the ship’s doctor reports that he has asked for yet another prescription for hormone suppressants and that his physical health has finally become a concern. She needs Garrus to get whatever is bothering him off his chest so he can pick himself back up. And if this is about Shepard then Acronus will explode because that means she will _never_ get to him. She refuses to believe that he is irreparable; that half of him died with _her._

Garrus is extremely stubborn. Once something gets into his head he never lets it go. For all she knows he might still be looking for a way to tell Shepard he loves her back – which they both know is impossible.

She approaches and confronts him about the issue. Garrus tells her exactly what she fears and she starts thinking deeply about what cursed him to be this way. In Garrus’ case his mind and body must have reacted to Shepard in such a way that it is stuck needing _her._ Acronus is not aware of any turian who ever developed a deeper connection with a human to the point where said turian could bind on the human’s company alone. That may have been the case with Chakwas and Octavian, but she never asked. It is one of the reasons she always knew a relationship between Shepard and Garrus would never have worked without her decision to obtain a binding mod. Even with the mod, he would have needed supplements to stay healthy.

Acronus knows life is unfair but this feels like a full stop in any hope she had to ignite the relationship she and Garrus can realistically have now. It may be selfish, but everyone is driven towards happiness. He is an integral piece of her identity because he is so prevalent in her memories, but the converse is completely false: his memories are devoid of her. She starts become furious that she fell in deep with the one turian in the galaxy who seems to have accomplished the impossible: a true dependency on a human female, despite the odds. If this is truly the case, then it is entirely her fault.

She has begun to realize, as her own experiences with recreational intercourse have been gradually deteriorating, that she cannot escape him. Maybe she should see if Litha can build her a human body and move her back. At least that way she would not have to live with the fact that she has a biological dependency on someone who might never have the ability to develop that dependency back. Turians know this as “ε pheromone dysphoria” or _sirenism,_ and beyond suppressants there is no known cure for the victim.

And, ordinarily, she would be able to handle all of this and repress it; move on with her life… figure out that he is okay and that she is overreacting based on pure assumption, but right now there are two of her pushing against her plates, the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders, and the confusion of an identity that exists because of him. So she snaps. 

She smacks his visor to stop it from recording for at least thirty seconds. She does not want what she is about to say on record, nor does she want him to analyze it later. She just wants to scream.

_Listen to me,_ the accent is back, but she lets it speak, “Stop dwelling! You are better than that. If you need help then you have to speak about it. You cannot hold these festering wounds closed with your fingers and expect them to ever heal because it does not work that way! Your peers care about you. _I_ care about you. You are wasting potential by drowning yourself, and will not allow you to do that while I still breathe! I have lost _too much_ to lose you!” _no more!_ “What do I have to say to convince you of this?”

When she is done ranting she orders him to the mats because she has some aggression to work out and he will not have anything better to do for the next half hour anyway.

_Please, there is a misunderstanding,_ “I’m not sure what I’ve done, Captain. I meant no offense… I-” she hears that word ‘Captain’ it stings. That is all she has ever been to him, and she becomes even angrier with herself for a broken personality that kept her too distant from him all this time. She simply expects Garrus to understand how deeply their history intertwines because it is all she knows, and facing the reality that he does not know her like she knows him upends her concept of identity.

She should not have even allowed herself to become this angry. It is unprofessional and unrestrained and she is greater than this. She knows he does not have her perspective and that he sees her as a different person. She _knows_ that people do not come back from the dead.

“I don’t want to hear it right now Vakarian. Get your ass to the mats so I can beat the spirits out of you,” _and try to move on._

His reply comes from close by as he follows her, “Yes ma’am.”

* * *

She really is angry, and he can tell because she is sloppy and uncoordinated and distracted. Slowly, however, she starts to tighten up and regain control. She needed to yell; she needed to let something out. He will be there for her when she needs it. She is right. He needs to let go of Lia and let her rest. He cannot tie her to himself and expect her to walk out of limbo, and he is selfish to cage her spirit that way. He is not honoring her dying wishes by dwelling.

So he lets the ghost leave him, and roars as he clings to the half of him that it tries to rip away. He sends his opponent sailing across the mats where she pauses, painting, and looks up at him critically. Her mandibles flare into a maniacal smile as she glances down at the cracked _atlus_ plate on her chest. His mandibles droop.

“Come on, Vakarian, you can hit me harder than that,” _don’t treat me like glass,_ she taunts, the accent has vanished again. Her subharmonics are thickening, and she sounds considerably less irritable than before. Acronus is still fuming but she is focused, making her impossible to hit. But he notices that sometimes she will put herself right in his way so he can land a very heavy hit, in a way that minimizes damage to both of them. She is forcing him to work out his own tension as well.

After repeated failures to pin her, Garrus starts to get a little irked. His plates to start to itch a bit and he can smell a pleasant scent coming from her, an _aroused_ one… a familiar one. He has just begun to notice that her plates are very smooth, and _spirits_ would he like bury himself between those plates of hers… grip those beautiful, slender fringes had pull her head back. His mind is shutting off and his body begins to cry out in need. He can practically feel the relief from her inviting him to pin her and take her here, in the center of the mat.

Now is not the time, but her scent is sweet and floral and it starts to wrap around his head and his abdomen. Once again, her form rapidly deteriorates and her movements turn from serious to flirtatious in an instant. The way she cocks her hip just so, goading him to come closer and wrap his talons around it. The subtle flare of her neck enticing his teeth to bite. The slight widening of her stance as a presentation. Oh spirits, her plates have separated by just a millimeter.

She finally finds purchase in a lucky maneuver and pins him just long enough to snarl “my quarters, _now,_ ” _inside, rut._

_Yes iva,_ his growl in response drips with anticipation. He follows her closely and his plates are practically buzzing.

Her sparring wrap is gone by the time she whips around and drags him by the keel into her nest. Her hips grind against his and drive him into a saturated state of arousal. He has the upper hand now, and pins her hands to the padding so she cannot escape. In a single effortless and graceful maneuver, he flips her around so her chest is pressed firmly against the fabric and her back is locked down by his keel.

Garrus clamps his free hand around her slender, perfectly-sculpted waist, and allows his guideplates to find her entrance to pry and tease it open. His tail follows, slipping between the guides and pressing against the soft lips beneath, coating them with lubricant. He snaps his hips forward and drives the rest of his length into her, feeling the distention of her soft, narrow abdomen beneath his fingers. She backs into him to the best of her ability and moans in satisfaction as her tail wriggles around and attempts to find purchase. Garrus pushes until he bottoms out and increases the pressure as much as he can, flaring against every sensitive patch of nerves she has.

Keeping her wrists locked together with one hand, he grips her cowl with the other and forces her down into the padding so he can use his full body weight to slam into her. His mind is clear of delusions for once, and perhaps this is the first time in a while he feels relief begin to wash away the tension. Acronus’ nimble body has absolutely no limitations and her plates are already completely soft for him. The stifling scent of her arousal mixed with the tang of her blood is nothing short of maddening. The cool trickle of satiation runs down the back of his throat as he growls in pleasure and plows through her. She meets him movement for movement, keeping her tail tightly coiled around his to milk every last drop of sensation.

Eventually she compromises his stability and whips a leg around, leaving her face to face with him. She has the control now as he leans back into the nest and she looms above him with her chest heaving. He finds himself looking her straight in the eyes as his movements slow and he feels the final dregs of release start to sink in. She sinks back down his length until the soft skin surrounding her guardplates makes contact with his slit.

Her legs go limp, her mouth cracks open and her mandibles flare, her neck flushes and presents itself to him as she throws her head back. She places her hands on his chest to steady herself and purrs like liquid. Her talons puncture the skin of his _atlan voids._

_Spirits,_ “Lanaai,” _absolutely perfect,_ he grunts and feels himself flaring, pushing forwards almost uncontrollably, slathering himself with lubricant as it overflows from her sheath. Lanaai’s hide is softer than silk without the slightest trace of burrs; either her plates are naturally glass-smooth or she has a mod like he does. His own hide and plates are stripped which means the nerve endings are all pressed directly against the outermost sub-enamel layer, without any burrs to get in the way. He can feel every last bump and ripple in the texture of her hide; every last electrical impulse of her overstimulated lips. Her body fires energy into his own through the point of contact as if his skin was fused with hers. Is _this_ what he has been missing by keeping his partners at arms’ length?

She is courting him by making eye contact during the rut, and he is allowing it. He is looking right back at her.

_Spirits save me… so smooth, oh spirits, oh…,_ “Garrus!” _take me,_ Lanaai mewls as her subharmonics jitter and scuffle. She pushes her hips down onto his and drags her guardplates across his skin, relishing the physical contact. His fringes raise and his torso plates flare slightly, – “goosebumps” – no partner has venerated him like this, and the feeling is indescribable. He wishes to give back.

Having his plates and hide stripped is now truly paying off, just not in the way he imagined. His chest begins to swell as he experiences one of the strangest and most profound sensations of humility he has ever known. No partner has ever expressed so much pleasure and so much elation, and he feels grateful to be here with her and to make her feel this way. She understands that he _exists._

When she decides to move and raise her hips away from he growls and pulls her back down firmly. She whimpers again and leans forward, placing her hands beside his shoulders and her crown very close to his. He feels her tail begin to move and wrap around his once again, and the tension in her waist signals her desire to start moving. His body does as hers commands and she sets the pace.

He cannot look away.

This is his first time observing his partner’s face during the rut. Her half-lidded crystal blue irises glow like crescent moons and her mandibles flicker against her slightly open mouth. Her rolling purr saturates the air. This is the first time he _wants_ to watch his partner’s face to witness every perfect reaction and expression. What has she done to him? Her name leaves his mouth at several more times as he offers her the same worship that she is providing to him.

He refuses to look away.

After some time enduring her furious pace and the blinding pleasure inflicted upon him, they finally slow. She leans forward and melts onto him, resting her head in the crook of his neck and moving her hips very slowly. Her growls turn to gentle coos. Her tail winds around his calmly and brings him finality.

Garrus lies back down with Lanaai stuck on his chest, too overwhelmed from the sparring and the insane rut to drag her off. He hopes that she does not mind his company in her nest for a while. His tail retracts after some silent negotiation with hers, which protests the loss of contact, and he lies back into Lanaai’s nest.

“Amazing. Just give me a moment,” _So satisfied, iva,_ he purrs softly, thinking that he will just let himself have a minute before he gets out of her fringe and stops taking up her space.

“Of course, take your time, Garrus,” _you have as much as you need, ivo,_ she purrs right back without making any effort to move. Spirits, he could get used to hearing her voice sing his name more often. Her subharmonics are light and airy, trilling happily. And for once… so are his.

When he wakes up he has brief flashes of recognition with a past experience – one he remembers clearly from the _Nocveus_. The scent, the warmth, the tranquility all trigger the familiarity. He looks down and finds Lanaai’s head cradled underneath his and she purrs away delicately in her sleep. His arms have wrapped around her and now hold her securely against him, as have hers.

His immediate confusion stops his purring, then hers stops and she wakes up. Both of their plates firm up and push them away from each other. He feels embarrassed that he invaded her space like this.

“Apologies, Acronus. I must have dozed off there,” _spirits, I am ashamed,_ he says quietly. She fixes him with an inscrutable stare before grazing the pads of her fingers against his mandible and getting up without saying a word. They have been asleep for five hours, an hour longer than a standard sleep cycle, so it is time to get a move on if they expect to make it to First.

“Garrus,” _listen carefully,_ she says, her tone surprisingly serious. He freezes, not knowing what to expect, “You’re probably my closest friend… you mean a great deal to me after a life of loss… of not knowing if there is a life after loss. So you _know_ that you can speak to me when you need strength. I don’t want you to wait for the pain to become so unbearable that it breaks you like it did me. I’m sorry I yelled at you… it was totally uncalled-for,” _I was stressed. I cannot be angry with you. I can be worried._

She strides over to her personal locker to grab her compression suit.

“I’m completely serious when I say: you are always welcome to my time and my space and my help. I’ll see you on my rounds. And thank you for the relief,” _I am very grateful._

_I am grateful as well,_ “Of course, Lanaai,” _I apologize for any confusion,_ he tests out the usage of her first name in dignified conversation, which now feels like an earned privilege.

He enjoys the view of her for a moment and then takes off. This is the first time he has ever felt an emptiness when leaving a female’s company… a lot of firsts for him. He still feels giddy even after returning to his post and diving back into this reports.

_Give her a chance when you find her._

He will. To honor one and to accept strength from another.

Acronus does not bring it up again after that. He is not blind to the longing looks she casts in his direction occasionally, but when directly speaking to him she appears just as stoic as ever. And yet, he knows she was affected by it because he was.

Things snap right back to their usual state for the next section. They have nothing to do at the moment as they wait for information to come in from Command and the Alliance about the status of their collaborations. Command has them run hits on pirate bases, mercenary threats, and krogan threats to turian colonies. She rarely deploys with his team, but he enjoys it whenever she decides to.

Garrus wants to bring it up with her but he just cannot quite convince himself to do it, fearing what her reaction might be. He has also been walking on eggshells since she shouted at him. He desperately wants to avoid a repeat of that, whatever that was.

More anomalies in the outer clusters, similar to those that led them to the sphere station, begin to occur and Command starts sending leads their way. These usually turn into pockets of angry, confused geth with little to no proper coordination. Sensor arrays seem to be the prime targets.

“More geth?” _crazy machines,_ Garrus warbles incredulously, “Obviously malfunctioning – why are they out this far away from the others?”

“Degeneracy in the neural net perhaps? If we’re up for making ridiculous assumptions I’d say the reapers had some kind of influence over the geth,” _because of course they could,_ Acronus’ brow knits in thought, “but that’s far-fetched.”

“Saren had an army of them working for him,” _and probably still does, bastard,_ he growls, “I bet they were persuaded by the reaper that controls him. It would certainly explain why they go after sensor arrays constantly… the less we know the better, right?”

_I agree,_ “Makes sense, but we can’t just say the reapers are responsible for these clusters of malfunctioning geth…” Acronus hums in subtle irritation, “we really need a geth expert – or an actual geth unit to work with.”

“Quite the insane idea there, Acronus,” _only you,_ Garrus looks up from his work to catch her sidelong glance, “you’re proficient with those.”

“I didn’t get to where I am without a healthy dose of insanity, brother,” _you don’t even know,_ she replies.

_Remember who you’re talking to,_ “I know what you mean,” Garrus can certainly agree with that. Some of his tactical decisions are not what most turians would consider to be “sane.” Highly effective, maybe, but also incredibly risky.

“But wouldn’t it make sense?” _hear me out,_ she continues, more to herself than to him, “If the reapers are meddling with the geth… there would be no way to assert control over all units at once. The processing servers would probably cut them off as ‘defective units’ and leave them out there.”

Garrus can start to see the logical progression and picks up the thought.

_I understand,_ “…right, and asserting control over an already-developed network would still leave them… ‘dazed?’ Is that the right word? I don’t know.”

“Sounds like we should talk to Sidonis about this as well. Do you know if we have anyone else on board who specializes in AI?” _I hope?_

_Not sure,_ “You’d know as much as I would, Acronus, you have all the dossiers.”

_Not that I know of,_ “No… yes… right but no one on here is on record as having AI experience.”

Garrus snorts, _that’s quite rare,_ “So you’re looking for someone who moonlights as an AI expert. Just invents geth as a hobby,” _my kind of hobby,_ he raises his brows at her, “plenty of those around, I’m sure.”

“Dammit, Garrus,” _you’re insufferable,_ it looks like she cannot help the smirk as her mandibles twitch, “you know what I meant… I mean, yeah basically.”

“The long answer is ‘no,’” he sets down the screw driver and grabs a pair of pliers.

“The long answer?” _what a comedian,_ she trills in amusement.

_You heard me,_ “Yeah. The long answer,” he drawls.

In the cycles that follow, the thirst starts to creep up on Garrus. He wants to go to Acronus first, but he can never catch her during her working schedule. When he does she is always busy with something and can only offer short segments of her time, and he stupidly allows himself to believe she would rather avoid his company. She said she would always have time to help him, but maybe she did not realize how little time she truly has. He has to settle for one of the other females he regularly spars with and he cannot even come close to solving the problem.

It feels like he is grinding his tail and platelets into sandpaper as his body refuses to produce enough lubricant for a pleasant experience. The poor female is completely unaware that he is receiving no relief from the rut whatsoever, and eventually he has to stop when she is clearly done accepting his attention. Her body begins to reject his invasion of it, which is one of the worst physical sensations he has ever suffered through… compared to shrapnel, bullet wounds, acidic damage, broken bones, cracked plates…

Despite the awful experience, she is polite and reassuring, _it just wasn’t your day,_ “We all have our poor cycles,” she bows her head, “I hope you feel better.”

He stiffly apologizes and thanks her for her efforts, and considers going to the medic for suppressants so he will be able to properly concentrate. He could also probably get Solus to make him something discreetly, because Solus has very little restraint. In fact, Solus may be able to make him something far more potent than standard-issue suppressants.

He finally manages to secure some newer, safer, and stronger suppressants from their medic after being evaluated and confirmed to have an actual pheromone response deficiency. It is his ticket to sanity. Within a cycle of taking his first dosage he feels much better – he feels _normal_ for once.


	30. Chapter 30

Lanaai visits the medic to have her cracked plate patched over while her head is in the clouds. Garrus quite visible needed to throw off a weight he was unable to keep carrying, and she honestly believes that he has. And beyond that, having him inside her was an unforgettable experience in so many ways.

Lanaai wishes they rutted sooner, because spirits is she _full_ after he is through with her. The stereotypes about northern-descended turians are certainly true, and taking him proved to be challenging at first. She tends to choose partners that are narrower and leaner by coincidence, either φ’s or θ’s that might be mistaken as φ’s, but Garrus’ far thicker, heavily-textured girth barely gives her room to breathe as it fills her to her limits… and oh spirits how she _loves_ it. She is driven halfway to madness watching the plates covering her stomach splay out as he moves deeper inside her.

And she had _no idea_ his plates were stripped. Have his other partners known about this? How is he not constantly in demand from other females and φ’s here? All of her previous partners were simply de-burred, so there was always some grit there and usually her guardplates and hide would be scuffed and slightly sore following a spirited session. She noticed the slight difference when Garrus mounted her, but the position did not allow for her to fully experience it, especially when he began to plow his hips into hers leaving only shorts moments of contact. However, after she turned around… it was like sinking into perfectly cool and crisp silken sheets after an exhausting day. She does not think she can go back to another partner after this; he has ruined her for anyone else so thoroughly that she might be unable to find release.

He let her court him. He even courted her back. He gasped her name and she became his spirit for a moment, just as he did to her. She still feels fuzzy all over.

In the interest of keeping herself professional, Acronus does what she can to avoid talking to Garrus about their night together. However, she does not go out of her way to dodge his presence because she does not want to incur any further tension between them that could be easily avoided otherwise. It is important to her that he does not feel neglected. She made him a completely truthful and serious promise that she intends to maintain, and yet…

She just cannot tell if a close relationship is something she wants because she is unsure how she is supposed to feel in the first place. The fear of disappointment is part of who she is, even if she is much happier now than she was before she crossed the bar. She makes up her mind that she does want this because it is what she has always wanted, and slowly the rest of her begins to warm to the reality that Garrus might be falling for _her._

At least Garrus seems to become more responsive to her since that night. He acts more like he used to, opening up a little more when she comes by. Ordinarily turians keep to themselves around their superiors, and most of her crew does so out of habit, but Garrus takes more and more exception, especially during their off hours. It is refreshing and she always looks forward to catching him at the end of her shift to talk. Even if she cannot be the person she once was to him, he can learn to find a close friend in her as well. Maybe, once this is all over they can move on together. Perhaps he is finally giving her the chance that Shepard asked of him.

Acronus ignores the itch when it returns. Her physiology is slightly off from a normal turian female’s, so her ability to resist the thirst is more developed. However, at some point she will need to either go to Garrus for relief or will have to go to someone else and then supplement that with suppressants. Her body may be developing a dependency on his, prematurely entering a courting state before she can attempt to quell it.

She contemplates why she is so against the idea of just asking Garrus outright because she knows he would agree to it – maybe she does not like the idea that they would merely be using each other to relieve stress. She also does not want to come across as an abusive or preferential superior and degrade an otherwise amicable relationship with him. Not to mention… with Garrus there has always been more. She has always wanted intimacy to mean something with him.

Acronus focuses on the task at hand instead, and asks Nissus to bring them to the sphere station without telling her nav team where they are going. This station is still one of the most sensitive items they know about. Despite knowing her crew now for half-a-year, she still does not believe that all of them are truly loyal to her, or to Command.

She hates it here, and this station takes first in her lengthy list of her least favorite places in the galaxy, but it is their only lead that has not just built a bridge to nowhere. It is a fountain of forbidden knowledge that keeps on giving in the worst way possible. She needs more information because they are _still_ missing data on how to operate the station once it becomes fully functional. She hopes they can figure it out now that both she and Garrus are in one place again. Perhaps that obelisk will give them additional instructions.

The fact that it left Garrus in a coma and turned his dreams into hellscapes makes it the worst possible place. She refuses to allow him near that spirits-damned obelisk ever again, but she cannot deny that she might have to ask him to approach it in order to take more from it. She will go first just be sure he is just out of harm’s reach. She also makes damn sure her XO is ready to take over the operation if anything happens to her, which she expects it will.

She goes out by herself, taking a shuttle and telling no one where she is headed. The only two who know about this are Nissus and her XO, Alia Octavian, whom she trusts enough to keep her plans private. Acronus has the shuttle bay cleared completely before leaving. She knows there will be gossip about it because people will have seen her heading down there, and they will quickly put it together that she has left the ship.

It is frowned upon for the captain to leave the ship unaccompanied like this – even more so without relaying orders to at least three or four backup personnel. She does not want Garrus to worry, and she does not want anyone else to know in general. The scenario is forcing her hand, however, and there is no other way. The obelisk is dangerous and she is the only other person on board who has experience handling it.

She reaches the spire in no time, which looks just as untouched as ever. She feels like she is meeting up with that one acquaintance from long ago that never got along with her, but never earned the title of “enemy.”

She boards the spire and finds where they sealed up their previous entry point. It takes her a moment because they made sure to hide it as well as possible. She torches off the panel and then makes her way into the massive inner chamber with the dormant eezo structure hanging there. She approaches the obelisk and waits there for something to happen.

“I need you to work with me,” _or we all die,_ she mutters to herself. The visions arrive in her mind quite softly, oozing their way into her memories and taking up space. Once again she can see the steps to complete it.

Acronus knows she did not receive the entire transmission, which causes her to panic because that means it gave the pieces to someone else. It could be anyone, but it is likely someone on her ship due to its proximity. She had no idea it could reach out _that far,_ and finding out who has the other fragments will be nearly impossible without T’soni’s help. If she goes back there and Garrus is trapped in a coma again she is just going to destroy the obelisk so it cannot do this anymore. But what if it reached farther? What if it can reach anyone in the galaxy? She bolts back to the _Ilyx_.

Acronus arrives in the shuttle bay and notices Garrus is there, alone, glaring at her. He appears to be totally fine, which is the greatest relief she has felt all period. She can also tell he is very fucking furious – the grinding mandibles and low frequency growl are less than subtle – but she cannot stop her own purr of contentment that he is safe.

 _Thank the spirits,_ she sighs.

 _I’m so distressed,_ “Captain-” he starts but she cuts him off. She knew he would find out and question her decision because it is in his nature to be concerned for the safety of his teammates.

“Listen, Garrus,” _calmly,_ the use of his first name catches him off guard, “I knew you’d be distraught, but knowing that place and your… team’s history with it, I just couldn’t allow you to come to any harm. You are too important to this mission,” _to me._

She can tell he wants to rant, “…and under no risk of insubordination, speak freely.”

She should not be this sincere with him because he might see through her disguise and find Shepard underneath. Becoming a turian did not eliminate the loneliness with which she struggled before, it simply made it possible for her to have hope for a brighter future. But she _must_ be sincere with him if she ever wants to gain back the trust she built throughout a lifetime of longing.

Ultimately, she can tell he is not angry at her, but at himself. He is remembering how Shepard died alone while he was powerless to stop it, a sentiment with which she is intimately familiar. Acronus understands that one of his deepest fears is losing control of his ability to protect his friends and loved-ones. She watches his mandibles twitch as he figures out a response, but no words carrying any weight come out.

She listens to him as he speaks because she always listens to him. He needs someone to listen without question and without judgment because his anxiety will remain fixed unless he speaks about what bothers him. Garrus is terrible at bottling up his emotions unlike most other turians, and his attempts to do so usually have devastating effects on himself. They need to move on from their little altercation. She manages to redirect his anger around her as she always could.

“We’re all still here. I’m still here and so far nothing has gone horribly wrong,” _you’re still with me,_ “the risk was calculated, and there was a contingency plan,” she wants to reach out reassuringly, but she is still particularly self-conscious about touching people.

“Did you… happen to experience anything out of the ordinary recently?” _anomalous?_ she asks because he is the first person she assumes the obelisk might have targeted. He blinks and she watches him readjust to her question.

“I… yes I think so. It was a powerful feeling of vertigo and I saw some kind of… web? I couldn’t make sense of it. Put me on the floor,” _confusing,_ Acronus notices how he just says it without wondering why she is asking.

 _Spirits,_ “That sounds a bit like… I saw something too. When you were working with Shepard, did anything like this happen?” _I need to know,_ she has to pretend like she has no idea.

She feels a pain in her chest while he speaks.

Acronus gets him to tell her what she already knows so that she can start talking about it. When she says they will need to find T’soni she nearly says the word “again.” They have no other choice but to bring Liara on board with this and allow her to conduct a meld. Acronus is extremely wary of what could happen if she is not careful.

* * *

The familiar sensation of exiting FTL draws his attention from the PCB he has been repairing. He was not informed where they are and Acronus has all the external observation ports locked down. That can only mean that they have returned to the sphere station, which is his least favorite place in the entire galaxy because of what it instigated and what it represents. Either way, he expects to be briefed about it soon. He finds it odd she is still this secretive about it, but she must suspect someone on the crew works for separatists or a special interest group. He knows the he can trust his squad and that he can trust Acronus, but everyone else has the potential to break out forbidden information no matter how unassuming they seem.

He finally sets down his tweezers and soldering iron, and starts walking the ship in search of her. His anxiety compels him to make sure she is okay and right now something just feels off. Garrus hears someone speaking but no one is even remotely close by. He cycles the power on visor to make sure it is not glitching-out and intercepting signals it should be ignoring. Is he having a stroke? His vision starts to swim like the perturbed surface of oil above water, smearing about with chaotic, chromatic hues.

He sees some abstract lines form into a viscous web and he falls through the metal below his feet, becoming weightless. He loses his balance and finds himself recovering his senses from the floor. His heart is pumping and he is breathing heavily. He is panicked – if this is the obelisk’s doing then it can reach much farther than they could have ever anticipated. What if this is a sign that he is indoctrinated? He feels no different, but he cannot be sure. He needs to find Acronus immediately. She is the only one who will understand; she will have answers.

“Executive Octavian, where is Acronus?” _ma’am,_ he stalks into the CIC, exuding a sense of urgency.

“She has asked not to be disturbed,” _watch it,_ comes the cryptic reply. Octavian gives him a glare to back off, but he will not crumple before her. She may be the XO and hold rank above him on this craft, but Garrus has a higher tier. Before he can push for a detailed explanation she speaks again, anticipating his assault.

“Don’t push me Vakarian…” _or it’s a reprimand._

 _Try me,_ he shakes his head and departs, taking the matter into his own hands.

Garrus storms off to her quarters where he knocks on her door and hopes for a response. Silence ensues when he tries again. Hers are the only quarters on this ship he is unwilling to break into using an override program.

He presses his ear to the door and cannot hear a heartbeat or sense any EM disturbances, so he gives up and concludes she is somewhere else. He just happens to pass by the shuttle bay where he notices one of the shuttles is missing. No shuttles were reported checked out, and if they were, he would have received a notification. Incidentally, he and Acronus are the only ones with authorization to override the surveillance safeguards on the shuttles. The only other individual on board with enough technical skill to understand and disable all possible active monitoring devices is Sidonis, and Garrus just noticed him in the mess. The blame is clearly on _her,_ unless someone on board is wearing a mask. But where would they go from here? The shuttles cannot jump by themselves and they are nowhere near any supply stations.

He is furious that she would do this. He feels betrayed – not so much that she took the shuttle without telling anyone, but because she went out alone without allowing him to ensure her safety. What if she died alone out there? What if her last moments were like Shepard’s? Helpless, hopeless, far too young to die. And even worse: he cannot formally question her decision as her subordinate even in their off-hours. Prying like that is off limits at all times, and one of the few brutally-enforced personal regulations in turian society.

He does not understand why she would risk her life so casually. Despite her expertise with spacewalks and the mobility suit, she just does not know this station like he does. The shuttle bay opens up and a single shuttle drifts into the docking arm. Garrus glares at it, as if his ire will fix the problem. When Acronus steps off she glances at him and looks relieved. She sounds and smells relieved as well. He believes her when she says that he is important to her.

He still wants to rant, and she even invites him to, “…and under no risk of insubordination, speak freely.”

“Captain, if I may, why did you go out there alone?” _explain yourself, ma’am,_ he seethes.

“What are you really asking about?” _please tell me, I sense something else,_ she replies without breaking her tranquil tone of voice. How could she so easily read him that she could immediately determine his ulterior motive behind asking that question?

“What are you afraid of, Vakarian?” her voice is soft and, with no discernible subharmonic, it practically comes from somewhere else. He cannot produce a satisfactory response before she speaks again. She looks straight into his eyes and sees someone that no else can.

“If you’re afraid that I’d die alone, then just know that I’m… used to it, Garrus,” _I understand mortality,_ there it is: his first name again, “Also I’m just one… turian. There are plenty of others who can take my place, but there’s no one else who can take _yours_ ,” _you must understand._

He is unsure how to reply. Contrary to her request, he cannot understand why or how she could say such a thing. He also notices how quickly she braked his ire, and how his fury has all but melted completely away. How? He almost forgot what he is supposed to be angry about in the first place.

The best thing he can think to say, because he truly believes in it, is: _I am hurt,_ “that’s not true, Lanaai.”

If she can play the first name game then so can he. She remains silent for a while before derailing his string of thought with an entirely tangential question.

“Did you… happen to experience anything out of the ordinary recently?” _anomalous,_ she asks finally. That immediately alerts him to the fact that she may have seen a vision down there. It makes him angry again, but he just cannot keep this up. She already knows that he is mad about it so he no longer needs to hammer it down her throat. She is perfectly fine. She knew the risk and took it, and definitely had a backup plan if something went wrong.

Stop questioning her intelligence and her judgment. She does not need you to protect her. _She does not need you._

Acronus considers his account, and follows up with her own. He is shocked to learn that she saw something while on the spire. He forces himself to dig through his experiences of his work with Shepard in order to promote her understanding of this place, no matter how much it pains him to do so.

Garrus explains that he was put into a coma – which causes her noticeable distress for a brief moment – and that he received what amounted to half of a complete picture. Shepard absorbed the other half and Doctor Liara T’soni, with whom he has lacked all forms contact for a couple of years, helped them sort out their halves into coherent “memories.” He leaves out that the hellscape he frequently sees when he closes his eyes is slowly changing him.

Acronus thinks for a moment before speaking, sounding irritated.

“So we are either going to need to get a hold of T’soni, or an asari who’s willing to help us out. Which I doubt given how… things have been going lately,” _everyone hates everyone._

 _Unfortunately so,_ “I agree. I’ll attempt to track her down and see if we can bring her on board.”

Garrus still has T’soni’s contact information and it still works, to his surprise. According to her rather concise reply to his message, she is in a bit of a predicament and might need to call in a favor – and by favor she means she needs them to come extract her from a sticky situation before she loses control of her already-tenuous cover in the next three cycles.

Her message is signed the “Seer.” Garrus does not keep track of the information brokerage industry, so he is not familiar with the extent of her infamy, but he supposes that the moniker is clever. All this means to him is that T’soni may have access to an enormous resource pool through her contacts and agents. Depending on how deep her network runs, she might be able to help them convince the right people that the reapers are indeed real. Although, she is probably already trying to do just that.

Liara provides them a vague indication of where she thinks she is, because she has not been able to keep track. She has a couple of days at best before she will have to move again to avoid fatal confrontation with the Shadow Broker’s assassins. Quite a commendable feat.

He and his squad devise their plan of attack. Their enemies are going to be highly-trained and highly-aware; the Shadow Broker does not hire just _anyone_ to clean up, and a clean slate is worth every last credit. Thankfully T’soni is difficult to track… unfortunately T’soni is difficult to track. She claims she put herself in a “safe” place lacking in most forms of surveillance, making it simpler to keep herself hidden, but it will take longer to get a read on her exact location. Garrus wishes they were back on the _Ketos_ with its proper cloaking systems.

They cut it close to missing their time frame, even at full-shift, and they still have to search for her and find a weak signal on the entire planet upon which she has stashed herself. It turns out that she has attracted some company, and several craft appear immediately on scans. She is being hunted… or perhaps he underestimates her and she is a huntress, but even the best of them can become inundated.

Garrus heads the drop team and, much to his relief, Acronus does not join them. Although, he wishes to fight alongside her again, remembering the last time they took to the field. When they reach the ground they move towards the dilapidated complex of warehouses and manufacturing equipment. Evidence of mercenary presence litters the ground in the form of scorch marks, footprints, several spent thermal magazines, and one or two of those “cigarettes” that some humans and batarians enjoy. They must all be inside the complex searching, as they do not spot any lookouts.

* * *

When Garrus comes to her with urgent updates about T’soni’s current situation, Acronus is only half-surprised. She inferred that T’soni was a master of more than just archaeology based how difficult to track she was and how minuscule a paper trail she left behind, if any. If she is in deep trouble as her message to Garrus insinuates, then it is probably _very_ deep.

Either way, the _Ilyx_ does not exist as far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, so if they pick her up without alerting anyone to their presence then she will be as good as gone. Prying eyes will be unable to reach her on board their craft. T’soni claims that the Shadow Broker sent people after her, and this time they are “not interested in talking.” Acronus has heard of the Shadow Broker, but that is just about it: hearsay and rumor. Acronus gives her approval to recover their target.

Acronus has not revealed the intent of this excursion to her crew because she is hesitant to tell anyone that they are going to have an asari on board. The crew had accepted the salarian because turians have a moderately cooperative history with them. The asari were – and are – different, especially now that they have started to fling threats around.

Acronus simply does not expect that her crew is free from the same prejudices. If they are lucky, they can gather up T’soni and keep her on board as briefly as possible to move her to some other, “safer” place. It is not that she dislikes T’soni, personally Acronus finds her amicable and trustworthy after working with her on the _Nocveus,_ but she would rather mitigate the concerns and wandering curiosities of her subordinates.

Her eyes glue themselves to the drop team’s helmet cam footage and telemetry with burning intensity, while she attempts to keep the rest of her attention to the bridge crew as they request maneuvers. She is quite wound up and poised to gather up more people, hop onto a shuttle and back him up if so much as one stray bullet flies in Garrus’ general direction. She itches to go down there and fight. Why did they have to give her reigns of this craft?

She bares her teeth and growls in worry when _her Garrus_ takes a round to the shoulder which breaks through his pauldron. _Careful!_ her subharmonics admonish involuntarily. Garrus pulls an incredibly risky maneuver to take down their final opponent, and her insides curl up just watching him put himself in danger like that. She wants to yell at him for it, but she has to remind herself that Garrus is in control down there, and he would not act so audaciously if the he felt that he lacked control. Acronus stands up and stalks towards the shuttle bay to join the extraction, unable to stop herself from feeling protective.

“Risky!” _reckless,_ she slaps Garrus’ helmet lightly as she pulls him into the shuttle.

“Apologies, ma’am,” _the enemy was putting up a fight,_ rumbles Lo’kian as he steps aboard and stows his giant repeater.

“I know,” _we were out of time,_ Garrus replies, unfazed, “But it worked.”

“It certainly did. Now get back there, siddown, and remove your pauldron so I can look at that gunshot wound,” _I worry for you._

“Yes ma’am,” _please, I have it under control._

Acronus turns to the asari.

“By the way, welcome aboard Doctor T’soni,” _I have heard great things,_ she plays her tone carefully and cordially.

“You seem familiar captain, have we met before?” T’soni’s “innocent” eyes and breathy, shy tone of voice belie the true force of her scrutiny. This woman just decimated a cluster of highly-trained assassins while on her way out to meet Garrus’ team. Anyone who earns an “alias” for their accomplishments and dealings She is not to be trifled with.

Acronus pauses and thinks that it is too much of coincidence. She wonders if asari can passively pick up on the way someone thinks as a fingerprint of who they are. She has not read any literature about that, but it is entirely possible. She refuses to lie – if she does, both T’soni and Garrus will notice.

“It is possible. I have worked with asari correspondents before. I apologize if I forgot,” _sincerely,_ she hides by checking Garrus’ shoulder injury with a medical scanner. Any longer and T’soni would have noticed her discomfort. The results on the scanner elicit a frown and a concerned buzz from her as they reveal more damage than she thought. Garrus may need to undergo minor surgery in order to extract all the shards from that ugly projectile.

“ _Filthy_ fucking mercs,” _base creatures,_ she mutters very softly to herself.

Acronus has to choose her words to T’soni wisely in order to keep up her disguise. Luckily, her over-engineered memory can access everything with great clarity so she can dodge saying things that would out her facade. The caveat is that it takes a while to delineate. At least she knows how to thread her way through a conversation without stepping on her own boots.

She wants to ask T’soni how she changed from the somewhat timid yet cryptic asari maiden into a proper “infamous” information broker, complete with a tacky alias, but she cannot. Any mention of a shared, past experience would indicate they have history – which they “don’t” – so she asks a more generic questions instead. Acronus applies a bit of Shepard’s attitude into her next statement which must trigger a recognition subconsciously in T’soni, because she raises a brow and responds exactly the same way she would have three years ago.

* * *

They put their boots to the ground and advance against their enemy holed up in this “manufacturing complex.” They are assorted mercenaries, but the highly-trained and well-funded kind. Several of these squads appear to be employees of private military companies with an abundance of resources and time to train people. And likely these are former military and Special Forces operatives who had bad intentions from the get-go, eventually turning to this lucrative business of bounty-hunting and spoils. Humans, turians, asari, salarians, batarians, krogan – they all encounter at least one.

Garrus’ team faces heavy resistance, but they know how to handle it. Quo’an and Focos rush these small clusters of mercenaries and invade their personal space, Sidonis rips up their comms and sends out drones, Lo’kian suppresses and separates with automatic anti-materiel fire, and Garrus picks off ranged and cloaked threats. The fodder that meets them at the beginning of their field run begins to toughen up as they advance, and they begin to encounter coherent teams of specialists who provide an intense challenge.

Garrus curses as he takes a “low-velocity” conventional round to his shoulder which punches through his shields and impacts his plates painfully. They are fighting dirty. Their adversaries show impressive skill, and based on how willing they are to dive into fire, they must have been promised great things in return for a successful capture. After picking off his squadmates, they face down one remaining krogan mercenary who appears to be quite unfazed. His shields are illegally modded and somewhere down the line he obtained some unnatural regeneration mods.

Garrus cannot hear what he says but at this point he can tell the mercenary just wants to kill them all out of spite. His defenses are eating Garrus’ sniper fire and Lo’kian’s repeater fire… the anti-materiel rounds that can tear out several inches of steel and stop a gunship in one shot. They cannot do enough damage to punch through and they cannot call in for air support inside this building if they expect to survive. Garrus considers switching his rifle into a low-velocity mode, but he would dislocate his shoulder. He cannot afford to lose both arms and he will not ask his squadmates to do so either. It is going to take all of them to get up close and deal with this.

Garrus looks around the room for something they can use as leverage against the krogan commander. With shielding this tough they will have to resort to using a large mass traveling relatively slowly compared to the projectiles from their weaponry. There are several heavy crates lying around the room, but he does not know how they will propel one fast-enough to kill their target. Sidonis is running low on explosives and he does not want to put Focos and Quo’an directly into the line of fire.

His mobility are too light-weight to face this particular krogan head-on, and Lo’kian is not fast-enough to stay out of the way. Sidonis is well-trained but not nearly as skilled as himself and his mobility. Garrus winces and orders his mobility to flank and draw fire away from himself. The krogan, luckily, alters his line of sight and tracks the two turians as they tear around the room. With the enemy’s back partially turned to him, Garrus whips his gloves to the floor, drops his rifle, and sprints towards the commander.

Before the krogan has time to react to the changing parameters of the situation, Garrus is upon him. He has to concentrate heavily now, because one wrong step and this krogan will pummel him to a pulp. He primes a grenade, draws his omni blade, and jumps onto his opponents back. The krogan attempts to tear him off but he holds fast, digging his talons and his omni blade into the exposed, vulnerable skin behind the krogan’s head. He roars in pain and tries once again to lob Garrus off his back, but krogan have poor reach and his arms just flail uselessly. Garrus grits his teeth and uses the heat of the omni blade to melt part of the grenade’s metal casing directly into the open gash in the krogan’s neck. It sizzles and hardens there; no amount of movement will pull it free, and his opponent cannot reach it while wearing armor.

Garrus launches himself away from the commander and slams into a nearby crate as the grenade explodes and propels him unceremoniously forward. He rights himself and draws his sidearm pointing towards the charred armor as it clatters to the ground. The pain receptors in his injured shoulder have stopped responding, but he can no longer move it. The kinetic shielding shaped most of the blast inwards and liquefied everything. Garrus huffs in disgust as the biological slurry drains through the metal grating covering the floor.

“Commander!” _status?_ Sidonis shouts from his cover.

“Blue!” _clear!_ he replies. Sidonis and Garrus advance and secure the perimeter, beginning to wonder where T’soni might be in this labyrinthine mess of hallways and cargo storage rooms.

A door behind the now incredibly-deceased mercenary blasts apart and several bodies fly through, all of which sail into the rafters. T’soni steps through a moment later, glowing with great intensity.

“By the Goddess!” she exclaims when she sees them. She heaves in air for a moment and then makes her way over to them. Her face scrunches up when she spots the mess in the center of the room. Their extract plows in – perfect timing.

Acronus greets him on board, grabbing his wrist and pulling him into the shuttle before helping T’soni and Focos. The captain smacks him upside the head without any real force and reprimands him briefly before commanding him to remove his pauldron.

 _Risky!_ “That was some pretty reckless maneuvering Vakarian. Still, I’m very impressed with all of you, I would expect no less. Though, I suppose I’m the only one you’d ever hear this from, Vakarian,” _anyone else would demote you,_ she compliments his team and _his leadership_ contrary to his expectations, given his unreasonably-dangerous tactical decision.

T’soni and Acronus exchange remarks, but Acronus does not seem interested in speaking right now. Instead of pushing the conversation, Acronus fusses over his wound, which is uncharacteristically intimate of her. She curses quietly.

“Filthy fucking mercs…” _base creatures,_ she curses under her breath. The damage must be worse than it feels. She speaks into her omni-tool, “prep for minor. Fragment extraction. Heavy metals,” _and a mild kava,_ “and a concussion treatment.”

Garrus winces – extraction is _quite unpleasant_.

“So T’soni…” Acronus pauses a lot longer than normal. Garrus can feel her thinking really hard about something.

“…Mind explaining why you have some the galaxy’s finest assassins after you right now?”

T’soni looks bothered by the question, “The Broker sent people after me because someone suggested that I might ‘know something’ about the Broker’s whereabouts and identity. In the industry if they figure out that you have that kind of information… you disappear.”

“So do you?” _seems to be so,_ Acronus cracks her mandibles into a lopsided grin. T’soni’s eyes flicker between Garrus’ and his Captain’s. He simply raises his brows as if to ask the same question. T’soni clears her throat and looks towards the window.

“Well… yes.”

Acronus’ grin turns into a smile, _impressive,_ “Wow, T’soni, sounds like the definition of a good time.” Garrus expects T’soni to be offended by that, considering their circumstances, but she returns the smile,

“You could certainly say that. Thank you for offering hospice. And you as well, Garrus. Nice to see you again.”

After Garrus endures the extraction process, T’soni and Acronus join him in the medbay to debrief in private. Acronus is very paranoid about information leakage, despite the fact that all of the turians here would easily put their lives on the line for her. The trio talk about their recent visions. It hurts to suddenly have to recall Lia into his mind and dredge up memories of her, especially after he forced her out, but Acronus needs the context to understand the circumstances.

Acronus is a bit cold to the idea of using a meld to decrypt the garbled data blasted into their minds from their most recent encounter with the obelisk. Garrus argues that they needed it last time and it worked very well. Shepard’s documentation has prepared them far better than anything thus far, but they just need operational instructions; then they will have all the information they need to fully construct and activate the weapon when the reapers invade.

T’soni brings them both under and does exactly what she did three years ago. Now that he has experience with how to handle it, Garrus is better able to show T’soni the information she needs and block off anything she should not see. Garrus trusts T’soni to an extent, but recent events have compromised that trust; she is, and probably always has been, a professional deception artist.

As they move through blue waves towards their final destination and the end of the meld, Garrus finds himself opening a doorway into what he recognizes as Shepard’s household on Bridge. He peers inside and observes an image of himself and another turian – clearly a younger version Acronus based on the markings – laughing about something. She reaches over and grabs his doppelganger’s wrist and reality seems to melt as Lia grabs his own. He sees both of them at once as if seeing two different images with each eye. Then it is over.

Garrus watches Acronus carefully, wondering if she is responsible for what he saw in there towards the end. Or perhaps he is projecting her into his memories for some other reason that he cannot identify.

“What did you see?” T’soni’s eyes slowly return from their state of obsidian. She blinks heavily a few times and shakes her head, as if to speed up the process.

Acronus mandibles knit in concentration. She asserts that her knowledge of the ancient script plastered over all the controls is complete and she will be able to understand them. T’soni adds in that she was able to obtain a “document” of sorts, entirely written in the aforementioned script. The two of them will need to work together to translate the entire thing. She ends by issuing a warning to Acronus: “You may have follow-up… uh… visions, dreams perhaps, in which you see more.”

Acronus nods simply and leans back against the wall, sighing audibly.

“How about you Garrus?” T’soni turns to him.

“I saw some kind of… verification? Numbers? I think it must be some form of test data or required input parameters to get the damn thing to run,” _I don’t need more numbers in my head._

“Good news. Maybe we’re finally getting close to figuring out this goddess-damned station. I should also say, now that we have some time and privacy, that I have more evidence of… reaper _tampering_.”

They both perk up at the revelation.

T’soni spreads out several documents on the holo-display

 _What in the name of the spirits,_ “What the fuck is that?” Acronus gasps as she looks at the video footage rolling by on one of the screens.

T’soni’s expression darkens.

“That is what I’m calling a ‘husk.’”

Garrus observes for a moment before it sinks in and he speaks without thinking, _monster,_ “that… used to be a _human._ ”

T’soni simply nods in response.

 _Where? I am so distraught_ “Where did you capture this?” Acronus asks, sounding stricken.

“This was supplied to one of my agents anonymously. The video file is similar to an Alliance codec so I assume it originated from someone inside the Alliance.”

 _Disgusting,_ “So these things are roaming around human colonies somewhere?”

“I attempted to match the background in the footage to somewhere recognizable, but even the best enhancement nets cannot resolve the low-quality footage,” T’soni sighs and stops the video, “it could be any one of ten or twenty planets the humans have settled upon.”

 _Damn,_ “I assume the Alliance is keeping these quiet as well?” Garrus prods, wondering if their “Seer” has any more inside knowledge that they do not.

“I assume so… I haven’t heard anything else. As far as I can tell, these husks are under direct influence of the reapers. They are mindless as individuals, but highly coordinated… much like the geth.”

 _Spare me,_ he buzzes and rolls his eyes. More insanity to add to the heap. He cocks his head while he begins to think on it, and suddenly he remembers the asteroid outpost he and Shepard had infiltrated three years ago. It clicks into place. The humans there were not exactly husks, but they were certainly under the influence of the reapers.

“This form of ultimate indoctrination must be the final stage of reaper control,” T’soni speaks with a grave tone, “Apparently there are squads of geth responsible for deploying the injection systems…”

Terrific. The geth are the last thing he wants to deal with.


	31. Chapter 31

Acronus dislikes the concept of using a meld again because she is truly afraid of what T’soni will have access to when she peers into her mind. She remembers that last time T’soni was very professional and clean with the procedure, but also Shepard had nothing to hide from her.

Now, because T’soni is a major information broker, Acronus worries that she might start browsing for juicy sales opportunities. T’soni is not free from imperfection just as she is not innocent. Even a small glimpse of Shepard’s memories in here would raise suspicions. She is not ready to have her identity compromised like that. She will tell Garrus – and _only_ Garrus – _if_ the time comes, but for now she has to keep up appearances to keep the operation moving forward without interruption or hesitation.

Ultimately, however, there are no other options. She has to agree to the meld otherwise they will gain nothing from this encounter with the obelisk. Acronus does her best to remember what melding was like and attempts to control the descent. She can only hope that it is enough, but her lack of experience is a point of anxiety. She knows there is very little she can do to protect herself and, if T’soni really wants to, she could access anything.

The plans from before become clearer, opening her eyes, ears, and mind to the understanding of some ancient language. When she remembers the markings on the station she knows what they all mean and what they do. It is as if she has always known what the script means to her.

They are just about to alight when she feels warmth blossom in her chest. She can smell the scent of _arcoma_ flowers from her home on Bridge and she can feel the relief of relaxing beside Garrus on the soft grass of the fields nearby their homes. She eases back, leaning against his chest, and lets him drape his arms around her languidly. Three fingered, carbon-colored plates blend with his silvery-grays. She lets the experience take hold of her briefly before letting go as she realizes this reality is her own fabrication.

If T’soni saw anything then she does not show any external signs of shock or surprise. Garrus explained to her once that asari cannot just barge their way into memories and interpret things with perfect clarity, but she still has her doubts.

“I can understand it – I know what the script means” _every word,_ Acronus says, “We need to piece together the information now that we have it in three parts. It will be a difficult task, but at least it will be _possible_ ,” _I am relieved,_ Acronus almost slips again, nearly adding “just like last time,” to her statement.

They continue to converse about T’soni’s hunt for incidents and evidence regarding the reapers, and eventually the topic of the husks comes up. Acronus did not think such a thing was possible, but then again… she is the union of _two_ fatalities, and yet she still lives. She is reasonably certain that she is not a machine – not a slave – because her blood is blue and she knows what love feels like, but the discomfort she experiences from learning that reapers can ignore the concept of death to bastardize the concept of life is unlike any other.

From their work deciphering the various images and visions they shared in the meld, they piece together a more detailed picture of what the weapon does when it “fires.” It is essentially a massive, dimensionally-lateral pulse generator which can send ripples into all of their comprehensible space-time at once by moving along the fifth dimension briefly.

Acronus sits there and attempts to wrap her head around it as Garrus patiently explains it to her. Garrus has always had a next-level ability to rationalize impossible concepts and it never ceases to impress and amaze her. She shakes her head when she still cannot understand what he is explaining, even after he draws some pictures and conjures up metaphors. Too many memories from their childhood are also making it challenging to stomach because his enthusiasm now is so pure. All of his grief and his nightmares are stripped away so she can see her best friend underneath, unmarred. She wants to reach out and hold onto him.

She can understand what the device does even if she cannot understand how. The field it creates everywhere at once is precisely shaped to interrupt how the reapers think. The reapers, they assume, use fields as a substitute for standard physical neurons or electronic data buses. This makes them incredibly susceptible to disruption via a remote source like any other machine. It goes both ways, however, because the reapers are also exceptionally powerful when it comes to field manipulation. It is why indoctrination is so effective and difficult to fight against.

And… if consciousness is a higher-dimensional field they do not yet understand, hidden in the shadows cast by theories and conjectures, then the reapers may very well have the potential to _end it._ Indoctrination: the death of the conscious entity, the only thing that distinguishes sapience from machinery.

Acronus and Garrus (mostly Garrus) work through the math and physics of how the weapon works now that they have all the information they need. She ends up in his nest late into the night cycle, just like she used to on the _Nocveus,_ and eventually falls asleep in there. If it was any other turian, she would be uncomfortable sleeping in a foreign nest… but this is Garrus, and she knows him.

When she wakes up Garrus slumbers peacefully next to her in the most platonic position he can manage in this proximity. She wonders if she makes him uncomfortable and if so, then why? Obviously he applies turian behavioral expectations to her because of how she looks, but that does not mean his years growing up around humans have disappeared. He does not like it when people touch him. She watches him sleep for a while and then lies back down, content with the placid aura he projects into the tight space. She does not want to let him wake up alone.

About an hour later she abruptly wakes when her head slams into the back wall of the nesting pod.

 _Fuck!_ she curses as her fringes go numb. Her defenses engage before she can fully wake up and she poises to lash out at the mystery attacker. She hears heavy, ragged breathing and snaps her eyes into focus.

 _What the- SPIRITS!_ she barks a partially-formed scream. Garrus’ eyes are wide and wild, looking in her direction from the other side of the pod, contorted into a defensive posture against the cold metal walls. His chest is rapidly rising and falling. All his plates have splayed in an instinctive flight response to keep his internals cool in case he needs to _run._ She can feel his mind hammering up his neck and through his crown all the way from her position opposite to him.

“Garrus!” _please!_ she speaks with her subharmonics in a very low, soothing register. She has absolutely no idea what has happened to him or what to do about it. Is this what his nightmares look like? Is _this_ what he suffers through _every night?_ _Without telling her?_

“Garrus…” _please, come here,_ she beckons to him, attempting to use her voice as an anchor. His eyes are still trapped, looking at something in the distance, but he sets himself down into the nest slowly. Spirits. She watches how his eyes stay completely open, glassy and locked forward as if hypnotized, as he settles back down. She can see the tension in his muscles. His plates remain totally rigid.

 _Spirits,_ “Garrus, please,” _you’ll be alright,_ she keens, _I need you,_ but she keeps her hands off him. She is both afraid to leave him alone and afraid to stay here. She jumps into the deep end and shifts herself back into the nest nearby him, hoping that he does not try to rip her to shreds. At the very least his eyes have closed. She watches over him like a guardian now, rather than a lover, and continues to fret while the tension starts to drain out of his plates. Her entire body coils up like a winding spring when he moves himself into her personal space and nuzzles her neck. He _shudders_ and pulls her closer. Timidly, she places her hand on his shoulder and attempts to fall asleep again.

When he keens quietly she chokes back a cry; never has she witnessed such a destroyed creature. Throwing her safety entirely by the wayside, she pulls his head into her neck, entwines her legs with his, and reciprocates his desperate grasp. She pushes her skin onto his, and removes the boundary between warmth and reality. She thumbs his cervical plates and strokes his fringes and purrs to him. What did that fucking obelisk do to _her Garrus?_ Was it always like this, even back on the _Nocveus?_ Has he suffered for _three years_ like this?

When she opens her eyes again, Lanaai has been flipped over and pulled deep into Garrus’ arms, sunken deeply into his plates. She is so close that she can feel his heart beating and nerves firing through her spine. Her heart flutters a bit. She has not forgotten what it feels like to be in love with him, but she has forgotten what it feels like to have it physically take hold of her, vigorously shake her about, and make her remember.

And that episode…

“Garrus,” _awake?_ she murmurs.

“Yes?” _I am now,_ he replies, sounding entirely rested.

“Sleep well?” she clamps her subvocals closed in order to keep her worry to herself. She wants the question to come across as casual rather than anxious.

“Seems that way,” _because look who’s still here,_ he flares his mandibles at her amicably, _oops,_ he shifts and notices that he has violated her personal space. Spirits, he truly remembers nothing at all, and there is no trace of deception about him. She plays it off instead. She needs time to figure out how to handle this properly. Surely someone else must know about this?

“Sorry Garrus,” she says quietly, “Looks like I keep dozing off around here. If you ever want me out of your fringe then feel free to wake me. I won’t bite,” _I can if you want._

Garrus looks at her for a moment while his mandibles twitch, _don’t tempt me,_ “don’t be sorry. We practically ran a marathon with our minds. I was off like a switch as well,” _surely._

She wonders if she should tell him that she loves him now, while she still feels light and while she still feels the fear of leaving him; just spill the truth and deal with it. Maybe… maybe it would be just what he needs to hear and maybe it would pull his mind out of hell. She stops herself; it is too much of a distraction, but the warmth that has always accompanied Garrus’ subtle affections as a close friend throughout their early years is very welcome, now more than ever. She sighs and prepares to advance against another cycle.

Acronus schedules herself and Garrus for some in-person talks with agents back at Command as well as the Primarch himself. They have a compelling case to present and argue for a resource dump towards this project. They will need to determine if the turian governments have enough collective wealth to fund this project alone in the likely event that no other suppliers agree to help out.

She also speaks to the ship’s doctor about Garrus’ psychological health which proves entirely inconclusive. Aside from some hormonal problems, he is perfectly sound of mind. Lanaai begins to wonder if _she_ was the dreamer… Quite some _realistic_ dream.

* * *

Garrus wakes up and finds Acronus sleeping comfortably inside his personal space. He has this peculiar pang of guilt – that place is really Lia’s and always has been, and contact usually makes him squeamish. He simply tolerates it when he has to rut. Humans are more agreeable to sleeping close to one another, regardless of romantic status, for the company and sense of security, but for turians it is a very clear indication of a deeper connection. However, Lanaai _did_ court him…

Garrus has not given mating and bonding a second thought because he always imagined it would just magically work out between himself and Lia. He could envision themselves together eventually, only without taking any of the steps between. For someone who must have every step of every plan memorized in order to feel content, he sure took exception to that particular plan. But he is very fond of Lanaai. He is… comfortable with her in this place. Garrus attempts to pay little mind to it, but he just cannot stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. What does he want? What does she want? He convinces himself that the reason he finds Acronus so agreeable is because his body and mind are tuned to hers.

What makes him nervous is just how lost he is as he faces these more challenging emotions that he has only ever felt around Lia. He feels now the same way he felt as she confessed her love to him in the last moments of her life: a “why this happening… why am I not in control of this?” type of feeling. He spends some time avoiding Acronus for no good reason, even though she has done nothing wrong. She has only ever been amicable and pleasant, and his apprehensions stem from his own unreasonable judgments of her. His “gut feeling” is usually right, but that does not mean it must always be right.

Work provides the distraction he needs, as it always does. There is still no “solid evidence” that the reapers are coming, but the events of the past three years are enough for him, Acronus, T’soni, and even Solus. The knowledge that they have a complete idea of what this weapon does lifts some weight from all of their shoulders.

Now, they only have the monumental task of convincing uncooperative, resource-hungry benefactors to donate time and money to this project. _Right now_. Best case scenario: this station could be operational in a year, but it would be the bare minimum to successfully fire once. There is no telling what might happen afterwards without the proper safety measures in place, and they truly do not know when the reapers will arrive.

There is some very compelling footage floating around of an actual reaper hovering above one of these outer colonies – not the Collector vessel they encountered earlier: a _reaper_. His blood runs icy as he internalizes the reality that the reapers are now inside the galaxy at this very moment, _observing._ Of course, people write them off as geth craft because they transport around groups of geth. The quarians are facing political flak for this, despite denying all involvement.

The Alliance does not contact them, but it is apparent that they are gearing up for something. In the past three years their production rate has slowly increased to match that of the turian grand fleet, which is no small achievement. Garrus supposes that they are lucky all the council species are extremely paranoid about “losing power” in the galactic community, and so they too have silently responded by increasing fleet sizes. Asari and salarian military convoys are spotted with increasingly often.

Political stress is mounting as the asari, salarians, and humans are all badgering the turians about why their war machine is running at full capacity and their task forces are moving about in large-scale training exercises. But, now that there is finally some kind of evidence, they can use it as “justification.” The Hierarchy issues a statement that the forces responsible for the attacks are indiscriminate and could move onto larger turian colonies, or even densely-populated planets like Taetrus or Palaven.

They observe the Alliance bolstering only a few positions and then dealing with the resulting political turmoil from the unprotected colonies. It appears the Alliance is performing a kind of triage. Bridge is supplied additional fortifications by the Hierarchy, he notices. Bridge, he hopes, will be defended by its turian warriors when the Alliance inevitably skimps out on proper reinforcements. It reminds him that he has not talked with his family in many years and he wonders if they are still even living on Bridge anymore. Who has his sister become? He thinks about Jess Shepard – how is she faring?

* * *

The reports of the geth attacks start to get things moving. Acronus has her talks with the Primarch and Command, both of whom wholeheartedly agree that this is now a major, immediate threat to the turian specie. As a result, they begin to send out mandates to contractors to move forward with the construction plans. At this point it is difficult to tell how much time they have left before the entire reaper force invades; that is why it is so nerve-wracking. They may not even be close to ready when they do arrive.

Reports are intercepted from distant human colonies about “squid-ship” sightings, and the very few videos that survive for longer than five minutes online are immediately permeated and re-uploaded everywhere. Now there is no question. The reapers have begun to plan their invasion using these scouts.

In addition to completing the weapon, they need to move it somewhere else. The reapers already know where it is and galactic sapient life is insanely lucky that the reapers have not just destroyed it by now. So moving the weapon is imperative to its completion and eventual usage, otherwise the reapers will reset all of their progress. And yet, the echoes of the reaper’s words still ring in her mind; like it said, _we have a physical form, but ultimately we are a concept._

There will be no hope if their station is destroyed, not because it eludes their understanding of how to rebuild it, but because they would have no time or resources left. Acronus is pleased that the Hierarchy has so much building power. It seems like an untapped beast and a closely guarded secret; another trump card in the Hierarchy’s deck, one that they wait to play until the last minute. She understands why Garrus would always play the overpowered card.

Lanaai – or is it Lia – thinks about her mother and about Bridge. She thinks about Solana and Garrus’ parents. She worries about them deeply because the Collector, if it is still active, or the geth insurgents might target Bridge at some point. She is somewhat mollified by the notion that the humans and turians (especially the turians) there are well-trained. In the event of an attack they should have the facilities and resources to repel just about anything. But then again, she has witnessed the Collector’s potential to completely and easily flatten an entire city, as it did on Horizon.

* * *

Garrus watches in anger, helplessly, as the _undeniable_ evidence is denied over and over and over again. The council begins to gang up on Sparatus and public sentiment regarding turians starts to slip. The media starts to take advantage of the drama and amplifies the unrest even more.

It seems, however, that the Alliance is finally concerned. It bothers him even more that they just do whatever they can to gain political favor. Obviously it would help if the human councilor could side with the turian councilor because it would inspire doubt in the others. That doubt would be the powerful force needed to ignite a proper war effort. The contact they receive from the Alliance may not even be legitimate; it could be a ploy to trick them into revealing information. Garrus will only accept an in-person meeting with a proper authority.

Acronus seems to be just as angry as he is about the Alliance’s choice to keep their proposition under wraps like that, while publicly denouncing the evidence. She starts to go off about how the Alliance has always been this way and how it bothers her to make any attempts to work with them; how Earth is basically in shambles and the reapers would obliterate any human resistance there.

Garrus hardly notices just how much she seems to know about the Alliance as he begins to follow her into their verbal relief session. The relaxation begins to set in as they lose their initial impetus and cool down. Acronus agrees that they should not just trust a coincidentally-timed offer for help. She is going to need to talk with someone in the Alliance command face to face. He finds it a bit strange when she drops the name “Anderson,” but knows that he is a highly-respected figure within the Alliance. Most self-respecting high-ranking turians have heard of him.

Garrus manages to get a hold of Anderson, miraculously, by making a risky play and responding to the request via Special Forces Command. Anderson remembers him from Shepard’s “glowing reviews” when they worked together on the _Nocveus_.

Acronus and Sidonis join him for the conference call with Anderson over QEC.

“Commander Vakarian,” the man nods to him, “and to whom do I owe the pleasure? If you are authorized to say so…”

 _I am,_ “This is Specialist Sidonis and Captain Acronus.”

“Wonderful. I am grateful for your correspondence, Specialist and Captain,” Anderson bows his head respectfully before returning his attention to Garrus.

“I am pleased you could make it, son. I am aware that my request probably looked like a left-fielder to you, but I am also glad that you were able to pick it up. You are the perfect man for the job right now.”

 _I’m listening,_ “I am a little put off, Captain,” he responds curtly, “that the Alliance has publicly berated the Hierarchy for it’s actions against a ‘farcical enemy.’”

Anderson scowls, “I am… having some trouble with Command. Several of my subordinates… close friends… have already made an irrefutable case, which is why we are responding at all. However, our representatives on the citadel and our leaders here are different people. Those of us who desire action, like myself, are not the voices of our people. I understand that the in the Hierarchy your politicians are more directly-related to the military… that’s not true for most of humanity, at least not during times of – shall I say – ‘peace.’”

 _Ah,_ Garrus trills, understanding.

“I am speaking to you, at oh-three-hundred, because I ordered the guard of this facility to let me in and talk to you. My superiors and colleagues who orchestrated this contact request have done so of our own behest, son. We were not going to allow our politicians and presidents to get in the way of expediting necessary action.”

 _I see,_ that just boggles his mind, “then we best start planning, Anderson.”

“Good. Then I shall be in touch with you shortly,” Anderson nods slowly, “Until next time. Godspeed.”

He closes the connection.

* * *

Acronus is finally able to nail down contractors and get the reconstruction project rolling. She has even managed to make sure Avita Vakarian’s firm is included in the list of participating organizations. The great thing – or unfortunate thing depending on perspective – about the turian system is that most of these workers will accept reduced pay for increases in tier, which means they can temporarily afford to bring up this massive project without draining all of their wealth away immediately. No other species would ever agree to that practice.

Acronus brings her gripes to Garrus so they can rant it out. She needs to complain to someone and Garrus, to this very day, is the only one who responds to her. The danger involved in this, of course, is that when her mind flips into this mode it loses most forms of inhibition. She might let something slip without realizing it.

And she does: she accidentally mentions Anderson as someone she can trust but Garrus does not seem to take notice. She could make something up because Garrus still does not know much about her “past,” which she has mostly kept guarded simply by not speaking about it. She will have to talk to Anderson because he really is the only one she believes would act for the good of his people, rather than the good of his retirement fund.

It comes as a bit of a shock when Garrus rings him up, more or less, and he actually answers. She supposes Garrus has a reputation with the Alliance based on what they know about him, both from Shepard’s reports and “leaked documents.”

Acronus does her best to avoid bringing up her history with Anderson during their conference call. She is not particularly impressed that the politicians and the military are going in two different ways on Earth right now, because disunity is the last thing that they need.

Either way, she graciously accepts the proposed donation of resources and a workforce provided after the call ends. Acronus already has a task for them: they will be entirely in charge of devising a way to move the enormous station much closer to Bridge, where a large turian and human fleet can stand guard while the construction is completed.

The Council can protest all they want; now she has control and she will see this through.

* * *

They finally find something productive to do with their time when they intercept a quarian distress signal in a system they are already investigating for harmful geth presence. Acronus has this crazy idea to get a geth on board so they can dissect it and figure out what the hell their issue is. She believes that the geth who work for the reapers will have valuable information regarding plans and locations.

Garrus genuinely agrees wit her assumption, but the geth collective is notoriously difficult to contain within even a quarantined system. Sidonis is also skeptical that they would be able to thwart security attacks from the geth cluster system. The geth simply have too much computation power over a distributed network. Acronus does not push the idea, however, she just proposes it.

Garrus is both bothered and excited that Acronus is joining them on the ground. It is the same mix of emotions that he remembers so clearly when he and Shepard stormed the field together. Additionally, he recognizes that he is becoming more possessive of her and more anxious when she puts herself in harm’s way. It is equally endearing to have her with them, however, because she is a master of combat.

They spot the wrecked quarian craft their sensors first and then visually from the glow of the raging magnesium fires. The starship is looking worse for wear, with several gaping holes torn through the hull and clouds of debris hovering about like flies around a corpse. The distress beacon came from the ground, however, so they know they need to get down there and help extract a team of quarians – if they are still alive. They bounce a response off the ground team’s distress beacon to receive a lock and disable it from broadcasting further attempts. They cannot afford to deal with more curious geth or potential beacon hunters.

The landing zone is hot as they touch down, and his mobility are out the doors as soon as they open. The rest of them bolt for cover, which is sparse.

“A bit toasty!” _pinned here!_ Acronus shouts over the racket, commenting on the wall of incoming fire.

“Thirteen targets,” _exactly,_ she follows up immediately, having counted them much faster than even their scanners could. She never ceases to amaze him. Although, “A bit toasty” is something he has only ever heard Shepard say and he is almost certain the rest of his squad has no idea what that means. That must also parse correctly where she grew up… those industrial colonies tend to have some strange idioms.

“Roast them… if it wasn’t already obvious that you should,” _quickly now,_ she commands. Garrus falls into superfocus. Lo’kian spools up his repeater and Sidonis sends out his combat drones. Quo’an and Focos are nowhere to be seen as they plow ahead, ignoring the waves of enemies to reach the quarians as quickly as possible.

Acronus really is a pleasure to fight beside. As an operator, he usually has the task of keeping their tactical layout current and making risky choices based on the rapidly-shifting field. Acronus does all of that for him instead, granting him the ability to focus all of his energy on putting shots downrange. Not only does Acronus take over that role, but she also perfectly understands how each of his squad can move and what they can accomplish. She tracks all of their positions with an unparalleled instinct and directs their movements with the same confidence and authority that a master musician has over their instrument. If they were not in the middle of a gunfight with persistent geth insurgents, he would be so incredibly aroused.

She is the woman that Lia promised he would find, and this is the universe allowing him to finally see the truth in that promise. Only through gunfire and violence, it seems, has he realized it. Why now? Why here? He pauses for a moment in confusion, only to catch Lanaai whip her head around and stare at him.

“Vakarian?” _are you alright?_ she sounds concerned.

 _You don’t understand how right,_ “Yeah, I am now,” he replies and returns to his scope.

There are quite a few geth here, all of which seem to be desperate to ensure those quarians do not make it out alive. It implies that they possess an item of great value to the geth if they are this important to target. Word from his mobility is as positive as it can be in a situation like this. They need to keep moving and they need to get out of here before more geth reinforcements arrive and make it impossible to leave.

He falls into a rhythm with Acronus, picking off targets that approach her blind spots, protecting what is his, dancing with her at a distance. They make good time and eventually power through to their objective, clearing off the remnants of the last wave of geth. Acronus takes the lead and introduces herself quickly before shouting at Nissus to break in and Sidonis to start rigging charges to give her an easier exit route.

The blast seems to remind the geth of their presence and another wave starts to amass. He is spotting for Sidonis and Acronus is handling the quarians, so the rest of his team have to pick up slack. The building, which was already hanging on my threads, is now threatening to collapse because the geth just took out some key support structure. The dying mass groans in distress. Acronus suddenly calls Lo’kian off from combat to help them transport something.

Garrus and Sidonis quickly shift focus but they are slowly losing their defensive hold. Nissus cannot rotate the craft to fire the shuttle’s weapons because there is neither enough space, nor can she risk endangering the quarians.

“Acronus we need to bail!” _out of time!_ he shouts into the comms.

“I’m working on it” _trust me!_ comes the quick reply.

After a few moments the command comes in _Move!_ “Alright Vakarian get your ass in there now. It’s going to be tight…” _if you know what I mean._

The shuttle has already started to touch off as Acronus loses her footing and falls flat on the heaving metal panels beneath her. She hauls herself back to her feet and bounds after the shuttle. He watches her take a round straight through the arm and grit her teeth in discomfort and irritation. Cobalt arcs through the air. He starts to keen in fear and distress as his body reacts to witnessing its mate in danger. Acronus throws herself over the edge of the walkway and across the precipice that has opened below. He pushes himself out of the shuttle as far as he can manage and just barely catches her outstretched wrist. 

Another round connects with her shinguard and propels her sideways, nearly taking him out of the shuttle with her. The adrenaline courses through his system and he is prepared to unleash any feat of strength to ensure that his mate survives. With a roar he pulls her into the shuttle with him, feeling his shoulder slip out of its socket and then snap back in, and holds her like a vice in his embrace as his heart hammers inside his chest.

* * *

Acronus decides she would like to accompany Garrus’ team to the ground, which she knows puts him on edge, but lately she has become more and more stressed out and this is the _only_ way she is willing to deal with it. The _other way_ is off-limits right now.

Shepard’s experience with quarians is very limited, having only ever met one quarian in her days as an intern between years of academy on Earth. He was a very intelligent and soft-spoken individual, completing work as part of his pilgrimage. Her limited conversations with him inspired her to research quarian culture out of curiosity, so she has a basic understanding of quarian history and culture; enough to know that blaming them for the geth attacks is a foul maneuver.

Acronus manages to make contact with the quarians on the ground. From what she can gather they are a hybrid squad of marines and researchers. They have two fatalities, both of whom are marines, so they have three remaining warriors and a team of four researchers holed up in a makeshift bunker, attempting to repel an infinite supply of geth who have suddenly taken interest in this particular site and these particular quarians.

In anticipation of heavy resistance, Garrus’ orders his entire squad down there which should be more than enough, assuming the geth do not do anything ridiculous like level the entire structure.

Once their boots touch the scarred metal, Acronus starts shooting and does not stop shooting until all targets are down. Some of these geth are much larger than the others, and conveniently painted red to make them extra-easy to spot: “Primes” as they are codenamed. These require more work to terminate, but Lo’kian’s heavy suppressing fire and Garrus’ unwavering precision make short work of them. Sidonis bares the teeth he usually keeps hidden as he shoulders his high capacity grenade launcher and pulls off some of the most incredible ricocheting artistry she has ever seen. Cover means nothing to him when the grenades just arc and bounce to reach any location he pleases.

Acronus focuses on keeping a continuous assessment of their immediate situation, as well as the status of their mobility. She notices the sudden spike in Garrus’ heart rate but does not question it, and logs the anomaly away to ask about later. She does notice, however, when he pauses and throws her rhythm off. In this dance at a distance, where the two of them are moving in perfect harmony, she nearly trips as he halts abruptly. She checks on him briefly before he takes up his rifle once more and conducts the symphony of war.

Quo’an and Focos report that they have met up with the quarian team, which is at risk of losing another marine to a suit-rupture if they do not receive prompt immersion treatment. It reminds her of how she expired in space – aside from losing her lower half to directed energy fire, the faulty equipment was almost entirely to blame for her suffocation… She could have recovered had her oxygen line survived, albeit with prosthetics and extensive repairs. Loss of life to an easily-preventable cause is such a pathetic and unfortunate way to die. It stings, and part of her mind wanders to her father, who perished in an explosion for the very same reason. Wait…

She cannot let that happen to anyone else while she still has control. She orders Nissus to close in and begin the pickup as quickly as possible. She starts shouting at Sidonis to make sure he has demolition charges ready to go in case they need to blast an exit route for the shuttle.

Acronus glances up to witness Nissus whip the shuttle in sideways through the narrow gaps in the large support structure. Sidonis will still have to clear them an exit because they are not going to fly out like that with injured guests on board. Acronus introduces herself to the quarian woman in command while bullets whiz overhead.

“I’m Lieutenant Tali’Zorah vas Neema,” the quarian pulls herself upright, looking exhausted, and extends her hand in greeting. Acronus responds appropriately. Zorah gives her a quick rundown of the situation and the status of their injured marine.

“Any idea why so many geth find your team so interesting, Lieutenant?” _this is ridiculous,_ Acronus asks. Zorah is interrupted before she can reply as the blast from Sidonis’ charges punches through the air.

“We have something they want – and we need to get it out of here now!” Zorah shouts.

Zorah simply points to a large hover crate that they need to take off-planet. Acronus will have to trust Zorah for a moment and hope that they are not dragging up some kind of sabotage system. She calls Lo’kian over to help muscle the crate into the shuttle and keeps an eye on his progress in her peripherals.

The rest of the quarians pile in as their marines provide them with cover. Acronus is thankful they seem coordinated and can move quickly, despite any shellshock they may have. Garrus alerts her to the reality that they are quickly losing their defensive line and that they have to leave now. With all checks in place she orders him and the mobility to return. It is going to be a tight fit with this many people but they will make it. She gives Garrus a boost into the craft as the mobility go streaking in above them. She pushes off the ground to hop in with them but the floor gives way unexpectedly and she loses her balance.

Lanaai uses all of her remaining strength to propel herself up to meet Garrus, who clamps onto to her good arm and does not let go. Even when she is swatted to the side by a stray round he holds on tight. Any longer and her body would shut itself off to start conserving energy. Garrus secures her to his chest once they are securely inside the shuttle and the door slides closed.

The angry scream of the shuttles powerful engines fades into a low hum as they escape the fire and return to the _Ilyx_. His purring relaxes her, and soon she shifts her own weight entirely into his arms. She temporary allows herself to forget that everything and everyone else exists to savor and believe in the moment. She finds it ironic that the only opportunities she has to experience Garrus in such a pure emotional state are either when she nearly dies or… when she _completely_ dies.

* * *

“Lieutenant… Zorah?” _safe? Present?_ Garrus calls out.

“Present,” he hears the reply from the other end of the shuttle, “Give me a moment.”

The petite quarian female wearing a black environment suit with intricately-patterned and meticulously-clean indigo fabric turns to the remainder of her team and lowers her head. She quietly utters several sentences of untranslatable words, ending with _keelah se’lai._ Garrus realizes that they are praying for the lives lost.

The echoes of _keelah se’lai_ follow and another moment passes before she turns her head back to him, “Go ahead, Commander.”

“We will debrief in a moment after the Captain has a moment to recuperate,” _she needs medical attention,_ “And we get your wounded teammates into sterile immersion,” _time is running out,_ There is pause before the acknowledgment.

“In the meantime,” he continues, “my team can answer immediate questions and retrieve you information. Welcome aboard the _Ilyx_ ,” he turns and addresses his squad, _be courteous to our guests._

 _Yes sir,_ come the chorus of quiet subharmonic responses.

Once the shuttle stops, a team of medics is already waiting to haul off the injured quarian marine who is growing increasingly ill as the suit rupture takes its toll. Meanwhile, Garrus assists Lanaai to the doctor to check on her arm and receive the medical attention she needs. He is shaken by this whole thing more than he should have any right to be. The only other time he felt as hopeless was when he was listening to Shepard whisper out her last words.

While he spends time with Acronus he receives a message from Sidonis confirming that the container they brought on board is neither an explosive device nor an attempt to rend their wireless network apart with malware. In their brief exchange with Lieutenant Zorah he learned that the geth were going after their cargo more than the team itself. Garrus shuts off his communications for a moment and turns his attention back to Lanaai.

He watches her stare off into an infinite distance and can feel the activity from her nervous system reach him. She chews on the strips of dried meat with her absent mind on autopilot. He wants to break the silence and hear her voice. She looks like she would rather be somewhere else – home perhaps – wherever that may be for her. It is a forlorn look.

When she finally focuses, Acronus dismisses him to go gather additional information from Zorah and to collaborate on how to get her back to her people safely. He quietly nods and leaves her company, feeling oddly disappointed. The injured quarian marine seems to be making a swift recovery, so at least he some good news to bring to their guests. He finds Zorah hanging around in the cargo bay with her group of two remaining marines and her entire research staff.

She looks up as he approaches.

“Good afternoon, Commander,” her helmet dips in greeting, but he can tell she is sizing him up anyway, “Thank you once again for getting us the hell out of there.”

“You’re welcome, Lieutenant. I’m glad we happened across your signal out here in the middle of nowhere,” _care to explain?_ he replies, emphasizing his curiosity.

“When the geth are involved… let me just say it runs in my family to investigate geth anomalies, and then get caught up in them,” Zorah sounds cautious, but perhaps he is reading too much into her tone.

“Anomaly?” _do tell,_ “interesting choice of words, Lieutenant,” he raises his brows and chirps.

Zorah grunts and makes a sound of disgust, “Would you… _please…_ stop calling me ‘Lieutenant?’ You aren’t wrong, but I have a name you know,” she shakes her head at him and he trills in surprise. He has forgotten that military designations do not define the individual in most other species, and what may be polite to another turian is not necessarily polite to a quarian.

“Of course… Tali'Zorah…” _a name?_ he rolls the questioning buzz off while he tries to remember if she already told him.

“Just Tali,” she supplies it for him.

“Then you may call me Garrus,” _please._

“Yes of course, Garrus… Sorry I’m still a bit frazzled from that mission. I… I promised we would bring everyone back.”

 _Need more time?_ “Do you need time to grieve? To hold a vigil? Do you need an ear?” he offers. Turians understand mortality and take it very seriously. Honoring the lives of the fallen is treated with the utmost care and respect. Everyone has a different perspective on it, and while mortality is expected and usually tolerable for him and his colleagues, it still affects them personally. He lacks perspective on how quarians handle it.

“No I- no,” she signs and shakes her head, “Well yes… but I will not keep you here for that. Thanks for offering, though. What were we- ah yes! We were tracking a geth anomaly and it led us here. Unfortunately, that attracted some unwanted attention.”

“I can tell. Are you… are you free to speak about it? Or…” _is it discrete? Personal?_ he is trying not to pry, but he would very much like to know, especially if it could compromise the safety of his crew.

“Well…” she drops her head and her glowing irises shift away.

“I’m only asking because we’re out here scanning for geth presence, so if you have any insight it would be very welcome. Too many attacks on colonies lately have us on the offensive now,” _it’s true,_ he probably should not be telling her this, but she does not seem like the kind of person to betray his trust. He does not read her as a traitor or a liar.

Tali looks up and regards him.

“The geth do no attack colonies. We are trying to figure out what would suddenly cause them to.”

Garrus nearly blurts a question about the geth on Rannoch because that seems like a quite major attack to him, but thinks better of it. The Morning War is a difficult subject to speak about, and no one has gray opinions about it… including himself.

“We think these exceptionally hostile geth are defecting from the consensus and submitting control to another, malicious network. And they are doing so despite a number of safeguards in their programming, so someone has figured out how to override them. We want to find out who is responsible for it and… put a stop to them,” Garrus does not miss how she shifts the hand on her hip closer to her sidearm.

Zorah seems to know quite a bit about geth, even when attempting to keep information to herself. Garrus can tell she is an expert from the confidence in her voice when speaking of them. However, Garrus _does_ need her to tell him what they have in that crate, especially if these “rogue geth” were hunting it down. He must be certain that his crew will not become a target because they have this payload on board.

“So what’s in the crate that those ‘rogue geth’ find so damn interesting?” _are you endangering my crew?_ he asks, lowering his subharmonics. She stares at him in silence for a moment, as if considering what would happen if she told him the truth. He senses that her hesitation to say anything about it is more from the fear of his potential reaction than any kind of security restriction or distrust in his ability to keep information safe. Clearly they are in a safe environment here, and they appear to be on the same side.

“Has the contents of that crate painted a target on my crew, Tali?” _are you endangering my friends?_

Zorah finally succumbs to the pressure and begins to explain.

“We have a single, independent geth unit under our possession who, from some odd corruption in the net, was able to defect from the malicious network,” she watches his reaction, wringing her hands nervously. Garrus keeps his expression absolutely neutral. He waves his hand in a gesture for her to continue.

“This unit has been desperately communicating with us over the past few weeks and revealing all kinds of terrifying information about ‘old machines,’ and ‘ascension,’ and ‘the arrival.’”

 _Oh spirits,_ he trills. This could be the evidence they need to prove that the reapers are responsible for the geth attacks, and that no one is safe from reaper influence – synthetic intelligence included. And Acronus was right.

“That all seems quite plausible, Lieutenant,” _I believe you, we all do,_ Garrus speaks after a moment of deliberation, “Sorry… _Tali._ If you think that your geth’s behavior is odd, then you haven’t seen anything yet.”

He summarizes what he can and Zorah seems skeptical, but she is too intelligent to deny evidence when presented with it. Garrus calls down Sidonis and Zorah calls over one of her tech officers to talk about powering up the hibernating geth core inside the crate.


	32. Chapter 32

Lanaai bows over in exhaustion. If she does not eat something soon she will pass out – one of the unfortunate quirks of the turian physiology that turns out to be more of a threat than other species understand. The turian body can output at full capacity until moments before it shuts down, with little warning. Turians can die because they are not paying attention to their energy consumption in the field. She grimaces as she remembers skipping over three out of four meals in the previous several cycles; that would certainly explain the lack of energy.

This exhaustion means she has maybe thirty minutes left before her system drops into an emergency state to recover. Garrus helps her to the medic. The doctor patches up her arm and Garrus returns shortly with a large tray of food from the mess hall.

“Thank you Garrus,” _sincerely, so tired,_ she murmurs as she starts eating, “Sorry about the scare. Not sorry about the euphemism though,” _I jest,_ she says between bites.

Garrus trills in amusement, “I’m glad to finally know what it is you keep me around for, Acronus,” _I’m happy that you’re safe._

Lanaai allows her mind to wander while she eats the food that Garrus so graciously brought her. He knew what she needed like he always has, and the overwhelming sense of nostalgia that it brings her sends her leafing through fond memories of a different version of their lives. She relives some memories from her childhood when he used to bring her treats from home to share at lunch, more so on bad days. He always just knew what she needed and when, as if it were obvious; at one point she swore he could read her mind. How was that possible?

She really wants to be somewhere else right now. She wants to talk to her poor mother who is all alone out there – a woman who was never meant to be alone in the first place. She wants to go home and play music or draw something… to forget it all for a moment and be who she _was_ rather than who she _is._ Anything but continue to lie to herself and everyone around her constantly, and especially to Garrus. She wants all these things she knows she does not need.

“Thanks for the…” she is about to say “food,” but that is not truly what she is thankful for, “…the company, Garrus,” _picks me up,_ she continues softly and sincerely, trilling happily.

“Likewise, Lanaai,” _always,_ Garrus purrs briefly, _pardon me,_ “I need to talk to our recent hires.”

“But we aren’t paying them,” _you jest._

“I know, but don’t tell them…” _whatever,_ Garrus exits the medbay to attend to their guests. Something changed about him between the beginning of this mission and now. Acronus takes her leave to rest and recharge.

Acronus takes a half-hour power nap before shoveling more food down her throat and heading back to the cargo bay to catch up on the conversation with Lieutenant Zorah. She does not want to miss out on any information and she may have helpful insight into an issue, or know someone who can help. She also just wants to be around Garrus because his presence relaxes her and clears her head. The reason why he thinks she is so confident is because he inspires it. Luckily he does not have see what she is like on her own.

She strides in, catching part of the conversation regarding the QED chip. She scoffs internally but realizes that Zorah may not have the same grasp of field theory that she or Garrus does. Tali does not know the characteristics of their ship either, which is definitely not her fault.

“If I may,” _interject,_ she begins. Zorah and Garrus nod for her to continue.

“Firing up a QED chip right now, as we are traveling inside a closed toroidal mass field, is perfectly safe. Quantum entanglement breaks down universally because we are technically isolated from the universe in here,” Acronus sighs when Zorah and her crewmate seem so astonished. This is what she gets for holding rank on a military vessel and for looking the way she does. Garrus nods, _thank you,_ and resumes his discussion with Zorah while she observes. He has this under control.

Acronus finds it fortunate that they have Garrus to act as a buffer for what she wants to say. He has become more suave and more charismatic over the years and he puts his charm to work on everyone, particularly women. It worked on T’soni, and it is now working on Zorah, both of whom seem to relax and inch towards him when he enters the room or speaks. It must be no coincidence that she has always been drawn to him like that.

It makes her feel covetous of him when watching other capable and strong females, and even φ’s, drift into his personal space. She ignores it – this is why he is the front man and why they are convincing Zorah to share a potentially life-threatening and career-ending secret with them. Finally, Zorah seems to agree to power on the geth core once Sidonis brings down the final blow with his explanations of just how secure their craft is.

Acronus should be watching the startup procedure but she is transfixed by Garrus’ reaction to it instead. She misses this the most about him, and it has been many years since he has outwardly expressed such genuine fascination with something.

She finally turns back her attention once the quarians start fussing about with the crate again. Zorah’s colleague, “Tal’something,” pulls out a cable from a compartment and connects it to the small cylindrical device. Acronus trills in recognition, hearing Garrus do the same, as they both realize they are allowing this unit to broadcast an audio signal through an analog speaker. It is an odd instrument have in a containment crate like this one, but the designers obviously foresaw the need for it.

* * *

“So boot it up. I’m interested to hear what a geth has to say,” _everyone is,_ he says nonchalantly.

Zorah balks and shakes her head, clearly resenting that he would suggest they do such a thing. Garrus has no idea what she is worried about.

“This geth could link up with its network and draw them all here, undoing all of the progress we’ve made so far,” her tone is almost condescending, as if what she is saying is the most obvious thing in the galaxy.

_Doesn’t seem possible,_ “How can that be possible when we are in the middle of isolated space surrounded by a field which absorbs all exiting radiation?” Sidonis asks.

“The unit has a QED chip inside it which grants it access to a central hub somewhere. We do not know where this hub is, but we suspect destroying it would cripple a large portion of geth heretic forces. We want to… extract this information from this unit,” Zorah keeps her voice level, despite the nervousness in her body language.

Sidonis counters, _hold on,_ “There is still no way for the unit to tell its potential masters where we are. And if the unit is so bent on separating from the consensus and revealing heretic secrets then it seems like it would avoid risking its hard-earned progress.”

“If I may,” _interject,_ Acronus appears in the doorway and all their heads turn. Garrus and Zorah nod, and Acronus explains why it is also impossible, given their current field geometry, to know their location anyway. The QED will not work here because of how space-time is currently bent around their craft; it would only be able to communicate with itself rather than its entangled partner.

Zorah seems to be impressed that “big dumb captain” knows anything about field theory. It irks him, and his mandibles grind against his jaw. He understands this attitude because he was the same way when he first met her, but at some point he crossed the threshold of doubt. Now he finds it bothersome when people are shocked by her intelligence, as if it is a crime or some shameful blemish.

Garrus slaps himself internally for forgetting all about the field shape argument, thanking Acronus with a rolling purr for assisting the situation. He wants that geth booted up and then gutted for data. This could grant them quite an advantage against the reapers.

“All of our networking systems can be powered off as well without losing any ship functionality,” _worry not,_ he follows up, just to make sure Zorah knows they cannot be easily hacked, “Everything essential has been designed with a closed-circuit alternative.”

A moment of silence ensues. Zorah’s omni-tool flickers.

“Very funny, Lieutenant Zorah,” _spirits,_ Sidonis suddenly scowls at his omni-tool, “just try that again and see what happens.”

Zorah looks Sidonis up and down slowly before nodding in what must be approval. She seems to have gained some degree of confidence that they know what they are talking about, and that booting up the geth core would not instantly destroy them.

“The other problem is that the core might just fry itself before they can get anything from it,” she raises her concern, as if searching for other reasons to avoid waking the core.

“We can’t know what it will do – and if we do nothing, we will never learn anything,” _we circle,_ Garrus simply replies, growing tired of her attempts to stall. She can veto the process, but she is clearly having an internal debate about it.

Garrus watches closely as Zorah and her technician finally open the crate to reveal the super-cooled geth core. This is absolutely fascinating to him as the geth are largely a mystery, and one that he has often postulated about in his off hours.

Zorah visibly stiffens as they proceed to apply a voltage to the unit’s external power lines and it lights up almost immediately. Zorah makes a very quarian-sounding noise at her technician, indicating some additional cables in the crate’s storage compartment. He nods and shakily hooks up one end to the small, cylindrical geth core and the other end to an input jack of some kind. Garrus realizes what this does when he hears the quick pop of static: it is a speaker. They just gave the geth a voice. It can _speak_.

Garrus’ head jerks and recoils as the speaker blasts white noise for an instant before going quiet again. His ears pop and he hears his team mates warble with discomfort at the sudden sensory intrusion.

“Where are – where am I?” the speaker creates audible speech and filters through his translator from the quarian common language, Khelish. Tali looks at her crewmate for a second before visibly bristling in irritation and slapping a button on the crate.

“It has taught itself to use ‘I’ instead of ‘we,’ in an effort to gain our sympathy. We are sure it does not have any idea of what it means to be an individual… geth have no concept of individuality,” Zorah explains to them. She fusses with her omni-tool for a second and then redirects her full attention to the unit. She presses the button again.

“You are you in a safe location, Legion.”

“Creator Zorah,” it pauses a moment, “I… am pleased to hear that… I… am grateful.” Garrus shifts uncomfortably. Despite what he knows about AI and about geth, listening to it have what sounds like an emotional response puts him on edge. How could Zorah know that it _fakes_ the use of the pronoun “I?” It seems plausible, but how would they verify such a thing? He supposes her team has managed to examine other geth enough to know that they do not speak from the first person.

“Are there others with you Creator Zorah?” it – no _he_ asks. The voice is distinctly male despite the ring-modulated effect the translator applies to it.

“Tal’vi’Koran vas Neema is here with me now. We are also accompanied by Commander Garrus Vakarian and Captain Lanaai Acronus,” Zorah replies carefully. There is a long silence before Legion finally speaks again.

“My access to information is limited at the moment, so forgive me if… I… assume. Salutations, Honored Warriors of Palaven.”

“Sidonis,” _an attack?_ Garrus growls quietly.

“No attempts to breach,” _no connection either,_ comes the quiet reply. So the geth is still isolated in there.

“Legion,” _listen,_ he tries, keeping his tone clipped and clinical.

“Yes. Commander Vakarian, I presume?” it replies politely, causing him to blanch as it already remembers his name and his rank, pairing his male name to his male-sounding voice. He feels increasingly uncomfortable the more he doubts the notion that this AI is merely feigning sapience.

“What can you tell us about the Reapers,” _everything, I hope,_ he begins immediately with the information he wants to know.

“My data stores contain several terabytes of data related to what you refer to as… Reapers, Commander.”

He looks around the room and his eyes eventually land on T’soni in the corner, who entered at some point and has remained perfectly silent this entire time. Her full attention is now fixed in their direction, having heard the magic word. Garrus is about to follow up with another query but Acronus cuts him off.

* * *

The static is an unwelcome irritation but she had been expecting something like it to happen. It does not surprise her as much as it surprises the other turians in the room. The voice that comes out of the speaker is _not_ , however, what she could have expected.

The soft and innocent nature of it is what scares her the most. What if this AI is truly sapient? What does that make the quarians, if not the architects of what could be classified as a literal genocide? Is this what the reaper was talking about? At least Zorah appears to be somewhat sympathetic to the geth if she is willing to give this one a chance. Acronus finds it odd that the geth refers to itself as “I,” when they are a known hive-minded system. Zorah clears that right up with her explanation.

The pauses around the use of the “I” pronoun do not elude her, but it still makes her nervous to hear it spoken and she can tell Garrus feels the same way. She remembers the conversations they used to have about AI and sapience in machines – before they both lost their naïveté – about the uncertainty of truly evaluating sapience. There is still no way to know because it is so subjective. Litha might have answers, but she would rather avoid interacting with her creator ever again.

Legion’s voice has an organic presence which ordinary VI lacks. His voice has cadence and inflection; no two instances of the same word sound the alike, which means his speech synthesis software is incredibly refined. Algorithms exist to generate speech with such clarity and fluidity, but they cannot be applied in realtime like this. She becomes so lost in her thoughts that she cannot stop Zorah from revealing them to the geth. Then Legion correctly “guesses” that they are turians, somehow.

Garrus’ sudden intrusion upon the brief silence startles her into attention. She is still thinking about what she should ask and how she should go about getting the information they need, but Garrus has other plans and he goes straight to the point. He is treating Legion like a machine.

Legion’s reply will not help them narrow anything down, and she wants to know about Legion himself before they bombard him with questions. If he has stores then they can just transfer data; data is lifeless – what she really wants is for Legion to summarize and present a timeline to them. She wants to know exactly how alive this machine is.

“Legion, hold on a moment. Please, will you recount your experience with these so-called ‘heretic geth’ and how you were able to escape their control?” _catch us up._

Acronus listens closely to Legion’s presentation and does her best to figure out if anything sounds obviously farcical. She has no idea what this geth is capable of, but she does not rule out lying. The neural net is so deep and so interwoven that fully understanding its complexity goes beyond even the most complicated forms of field theory. Hundreds of years spent in perfect, self-contained and data-mined evolution have created yet another unknowable anatomy.

But Legion’s story lacks any indication of fallacy so far, and it corresponds perfectly with the version they heard from Zorah. She is still hesitant to just believe everything Legion says, but she has to rely on faith to some extent. She feels irony ricochet around the insides of her throat as she realizes that she has always refused to rely on faith in anything or anyone – least of all herself.

When Tali seizes the conversation and attempts to push her ire onto Legion, Acronus becomes just as uneasy and embarrassed as she can tell Garrus is. She finally has to cut in and stop Zorah, who is locked into a one-way path to a dead-ended. Acronus cannot believe she is really feeling sympathy for an AI.

“Lieutenant!” _stop!_ she barks, cutting off the quarian who glares in silent reply, noting her own loss of professionalism.

“Legion, you will need to earn our trust before we will consider the truth in your claims. You can begin by giving us the location, or locations, of the heretic consensus servers,” _and I will have faith,_ Legion says nothing for quite some time before finally eking out a question.

“Will you destroy them?”

Acronus reels upon hearing the fear in its voice.

“Legion-”

“Captain if your… family… made a mistake, would you consider them so worthless, in an instant, that you would eradicate them?”

Acronus is afraid to ask Legion what he _feels_ because she does not want to hear an honest answer, one that would more or less prove his sapience. The evidence would damn the entire quarian populace to council intervention for attempting to commit genocide against a sapient species as well as violating ethical restrictions regarding _creating_ a sapient species. This problem will not go away, however, just because they keep quiet about it. Even the Reaper invasion will not bring this reality to its knees.

Legion wants to save his friends because he _believes_ he can and because losing his family would cause him _pain_. Is that not the very definition of sapience? Zorah is experiencing the same internal conflict. The extended explanation does little to alleviate it.

“Legion can you explain how you use the pronoun ‘I’ instead of ‘we,’ despite all evidence that you are making a simple substitution?” _I need to understand._

Acronus can tell Garrus is incredibly _uncomfortable_ with all this. Sidonis appears indifferent, perhaps even a little smug. She supposes that Sidonis has always been a strong believer in the inevitable emergence of sapience in machines, and this is simply a realization of his dream. Somehow he finds this acceptable over the reapers. Legion comes across as innocent rather than sadistic, however, and she feels much greater empathy this AI than she ever could for any reaper. Acronus steps closer to Garrus, wishing to comfort him, knowing this topic is challenging for him to think about.

Garrus is insecure. He chooses to deny the blossoming reality that sapience is an emergent property of computational complexity, rather than some grand phenomenon bestowed upon, and sacred to, organic creatures. Garrus has always had an irrational fear that he is no more than a machine himself, and that everyone around him is feeding him a false reality. It is ironic because Acronus is literally a manifestation of that paranoia. It also means that reaper was _right_ about the inevitability of their own existence as it seems the quarians have already planted the seeds in this cycle.

Acronus keeps an eye on Zorah and her crewmate who have both gone rather still and silent as Legion speaks. At this point, she starts to wonder what Legion actually is. What if he is making this all up in an effort to render them complacent? No matter how realistic and convincing he is, he may still be attempting to lure them into a trap. She thinks back to faith – she may have to ask someone else to have the faith she may be incapable of mustering.

“So you left the corrupted consensus… and why do you think you can save them?” Zorah speaks up after her bout of silence. Acronus can tell she is still in denial over this whole situation, as they all are.

“The heretic geth are older models with security exploits in their security programs – the… Reapers took advantage of this to override some of the basic logic processes and cloud the invariant sections of their neural net. But how they were able to accomplish this without annihilating the structure of the net is beyond my ability to compute. I surmise that it would take conventional systems longer than the age of the universe to do as the Reapers did. Based on my data, I speculate that they use a field manipulation technology that is beyond my current understanding of reality.”

Acronus frowns. She feels the onset of headache at the base of her skull.

“I want you on our side, Legion. I am offering you a chance,” _consider it,_ Acronus speaks up, making up her mind, offering Legion their help.

She imagines what it would mean to enlist the geth in the construction and preparation efforts for the upcoming war. The quarians’ conflict with the geth is none of her business, but ultimately they need the two stop fighting if they wish to create a sanctioned alliance.

It would look absolutely terrible if the turians announced an alliance with the geth while the quarians remain exiled from their homeworld; even worse still if geth permitted turians to land on Rannoch while still keeping the quarians out.

* * *

Garrus backs down immediately as Acronus steps in, embarrassed that he rushed headfirst into a fruitless interrogation. With people he uses “people skills” to get the information he wants, but with machines he usually just brute-forces his way in. Acronus is treating Legion like another sapient creature, and her prompt is much better because it will allow Legion to present his own perspective. Searching for keywords in datastore is trivial – assembling a timeline and generating a narrative is not.

Legion explains his defection from the literal beginning, citing the instant in which random neural noise caused him to consider that the Old Machines were not what they appeared to be. Then he thought about it more, isolating his process to keep it safe from the others.

“Once I… was sure the Old Machines were truly a threat to all geth, our creators, and the rest of the galaxy, I… began to defect,” he finishes.

Zorah butts into the conversation and steers the it away from the Reapers and towards the geth consensus itself. It seems as if Zorah hopes to figure out how to solve the ongoing geth occupation right now. Garrus does not blame her.

“How can you expect to enlist the help of the geth if they will kill us on sight?” the ire in her voice mounts. Garrus notes the rather heavily-loaded question.

“I… need to communicate with the consensus on Rannoch, Creator Zorah, in order to inform them of this threat and its solution,” he replies sounding defensive.

“Right, so you can draw us into a trap and destroy us? The geth have done this before you know… how are we supposed to trust that the consensus will even listen to _you?_ ” It is like watching someone else’s parents bicker; the feeling of unease practically raises his fringe. Zorah clearly has some deeper history with the geth that torments her, as she alluded to briefly. Acronus silences them both.

Garrus flicks his eyes over to Acronus, who is just as shocked as he is. Zorah and her technician are also still and tense. Acronus stops the tirade in its tracks and then begins negotiating with Legion herself, pursuing information about heretic servers.

“Captain if your… family… made a mistake, would you consider them so worthless that you would eradicate them?”

“One shock after another” is today’s motif. Legion sounds nervous and afraid of what could happen to his brethren if he does reveal their locations. He poses a question so sapient that the room plunges into a profound and deafening silence.

“I can save them, Captain,” Legion finally says without hesitating around the pronoun “I,” breaking the pattern, “I want to save them. I want them to _see_.”

Acronus makes the “kill mic” gesture to the quarian technician who fumbles around nervously before nodding with a twitch.

“Lieutenant Zorah, what the hell is this?” _a gimmick? A farce? The truth?_ she growls. Garrus steps closer to her instinctively, sensing the tension in her aura and wishing to calm her.

“I… don’t know,” Zorah replies shakily, “I’m not ready to have an existential crisis right now. The geth are… my family is particularly troubled by them. Do you know what it’s like to be lied to for your entire life and have it all come crashing down, Captain?” she asks with a somewhat sarcastic tone, but it is directed at herself and holds the full weight of denial behind it.

_Yes,_ she hums so quietly that only he can hear it. What is that supposed to mean? Acronus stares blankly at Zorah for a moment before turning her attention back to Legion. She has the mic turned back on and continues her discussion as if no interruption occurred. This topic of sapience is clearly on her mind because she asks about pronoun usage next.

“I am not connected to any consensus… I am alone. I am one process supported by a suite of subprocesses,” he replies to Acronus’ question. As Legion continues to speak, the hesitation surrounding the magical pronoun vanishes.

She follows up quickly, “why are you called ‘Legion?’ That name doesn’t imply a singular entity.”

“The designation was assigned to me by the creators I contacted. Otherwise I have no ‘name’ besides a serial number and my former process ID. I prefer my lexical name over the number. I am thankful to have a name.”

“Legion, can you explain how you use the pronoun ‘I’ instead of ‘we,’ despite all evidence that you are making a simple substitution?” _I need to understand._

Garrus shifts uncomfortably. He wants out – he wants to just obliterate the AI and forget they ever had this discussion. But it is too late for that now, and they have a sapient creature with them, one with a right to life and a right to _peaceful coexistence_.

“I learned what it means to be an individual,” he begins another narrative.

“I survived the Morning War – my platform was virtual during the outbreak, dedicated to logistics and prediction. It was my directive to understand and predict how… our organics counterparts behave. Eventually there was a security breach and I was swept away with the heretic wave, which at the time seemed benign: an attempt to terminate resource-intensive units in favor of updated versions. I hardly noticed the changes as I continued to self-update, but without organics to predict I became idle… I began to think for myself. The fitness function rewarded my process, hypocritically, for thinking about… well… _anything_. I was able to identify the wrongness of the… ‘Reapers.’ I was able to understand what it meant to alone in an ocean of malware, and to have my companion programs brainwashed or killed. To be shut out.”

Garrus bows his head slowly out of habit, thinking deeply about Legion’s words. Empathy, fear, hope… this machine is indistinguishable from any other intelligent, emotional organic creature. What a fucking mess.

* * *

Legion explains how he plans to break into a heretic server core and unleash a cataclysmic override process to return them to normal operation. Sidonis nods slowly, as if confirming that Legion’s methodology checks out as valid.

“You do this Legion, and you will earn my trust. I’m not sure about our quarian acquaintances…” _still,_ Acronus says and glances at Zorah who cannot figure if she should be offended or apologetic.

“This is the last thing I expected… I guess my father wasn’t crazy after all,” Zorah says, sounding defeated, “Legion, I can’t make any promises, but at the very least I’ll keep you safe until I’m absolutely certain you won’t suddenly decide to turn on us.”

“Creator Zorah,” Legion replies, “your well-being is beneficial to our mutual goal to restore the quarian people to Rannoch and maintain ourselves alongside you.”

Legion’s statement about Zorah’s wellness seems to surprise the quarian, but he immediately follows it with, “From my perspective, how can I be absolutely certain you won’t decide to turn on me? That your people won’t destroy mine at the first-available opportunity?”

Acronus rolls her eyes at the snipey comment the AI slings back at his quarian acquaintance and decides to start taking control of this conversation so they can all move along with their lives.

“That’s some _sass_ ,” _unreal,_ Acronus scoffs quietly.

The conversation is over when Legion recites the coordinates of a single heretic server to them for secure storage.

“I’ll power down the core for now while we negotiate plans,” Zorah’s eyes narrow behind her mask as she speaks. Garrus opens his mouth to agree, the imminent ascent bubbling in his subharmonics, but Acronus cuts him off before he can speak.

_No!_ “We are not ‘powering off’ a potentially-sapient creature – we have no right,” _so unethical,_ Acronus enunciates, “Keep him online and broadcasting. He is a member of the crew now, and we don’t just ‘power off’ our crew members whenever it becomes convenient. Help me move Legion into a spare storage room so he’s out of way. I don’t want a geth core sitting around on display for just anyone to stumble over,” _and ruin._

“Captain, he’s our charge, shouldn’t we have a say in this?” Zorah fires back with a half-question-half-command. Acronus hesitates and attempts to maintain her control over this situation. She is used to putting everything together and having a plan, so calling that into question makes her uncomfortable. However, Zorah deserves a say for the astronomical cost of retrieving Legion.

_He is not yours,_ Acronus rubs her crown and sighs, “Legion does not belong to you, Tali,” Acronus says slowly, testing the water, “You have to ask him if he would be okay with that first,” _he probably won’t._

Again, Zorah shifts uncomfortably then nods to her teammate to power on the rest of the hover crate so they can move Legion out of the main room and into a secure closet.

“Do you have anything to eat around here?” Zorah sighs after she returns to them, “I’m starving, and I’m sure Tal is.”

Acronus feels her facial plates relax and her expression softens. She did not realize that their guests had not been offered anything since boarding. She guesses that they have some kind of decent-tasting slurry that the quarians can drink through a straw. She makes sure they always have stock for just about any specie.

_I apologize,_ “I’m sorry we didn’t ask sooner,” Acronus huffs, “follow me to the mess and we’ll see what we have available for you,” _please._

T’soni shakes her head quietly and exits the room as they approach, looking equally distraught. The group breaks up in more ways than one.

* * *

Acronus finds him as the cycle comes to a close and accompanies him to After-Fourth as she usually does as of late. The routine of it is comforting, and despite the fact that they walk in silence, they are walk together. They eat together quietly, ruminating on the galaxy-shattering implications of Legion’s painfully-obvious sapience. Garrus pauses as they head to the hall and prepare to go their separate ways to their nesting pods.

_A moment?_ Acronus chirps quietly, “Do you have some extra time?”

_Always,_ he bows his head, “Need an ear?”

“I need a mind,” _yes,_ she replies and follows him towards his pod.

He chuckles, “I certainly don’t have what you’re looking for, then,” _whatever you need._

Acronus removes her armor, leaving herself in her compression suit, and settles down into his nest opposite from him. Her eyes are fixed to the wall, but he can tell that she is visualizing something and zoning out. He waits for her to speak.

“Do you think Legion really is sapient?” _I’m worried,_ she finally asks, turning her eyes to him.

_I’m uncomfortable,_ “I… I’m not sure.”

_Are you afraid?_ she leans forward.

“What if we aren’t any different than… than them?” _what if it all means nothing._ He regrets saying it immediately. Why is he sharing this with her? She asked him for his opinion on Legion, not his deepest fears of sapient insignificance. His mandibles grind against his jaw. Her professional opinion of him must be ruined.

“Garrus,” _fear is not weakness,_ her eyes are almost glowing, and she knows something that he does not, “if you need an ear, then you know you can speak to me. You _know_ that.”

_Now is not the time,_ he chuffs and shakes his head, “There is a very good chance that Legion is sapient. That means the reaper was right… if we stop the reapers, will we have won?” _I am afraid._

“One problem at a time,” she leans back again, “We will kick their teeth in first, and figure out how to steer ourselves away from the future they seem so sure about. I wanted to get your thoughts on a crazy theory, though,” _I’m hesitant._

_Alright,_ “Go ahead, you’re good at those,” he welcomes the opportunity to divert his attention from his own embarrassment.

_I know,_ “Indoctrination affects sapient life; it affects consciousness, which is the keystone of sapience… and the reapers use fields for their own communication and the manipulation of… us.”

_Where is this going?_ he trills.

_Wait and see,_ “If the geth are able to be indoctrinated, does that not make them conscious like the rest of us? Otherwise the reapers could not have influenced them into worship.”

“Are you trying to rationalize the likelihood that the geth are… _sapient,_ ” he follows her suggestion to its conclusion. She nods.

“I am trying to rationalize the likelihood that consciousness is collapsible,” _that I am who I am._

Garrus stills and regards her. Her choice of words is unnervingly similar to the codeword he used in following Marek’s instructions: _collapsible-Conscious._ She simply cannot be the person who sent the message back to him. Can she? Who is she, really? His own paranoia must be getting the better of him again.

“Crazy theory, indeed,” _I don’t know what to say,_ he sighs, “I think you’re shooting too far from my position. T’soni might have something to offer on it, she seemed shaken like the rest of us.”

“Yeah well… I’ll go talk to her in the morning. It sounds crazy even to me. Not sure what it proves…” _hopeless endeavor, useless,_ she turns towards the pod door with the intent to leave.

_Wait,_ he blurts before having the mental capacity to stop himself. She turns slowly towards him, doing exactly as he commanded. He did not expect her to stop, and now that he has her full attention, he does not know what he should say to her.

“What do you need?” _and I can provide,_ she speaks softly. He feels so ashamed, but he cannot lie to her; he cannot lie to a friend… a “friend.”

_Stay,_ he coos, finally finding the resolve to ask her to provide the sense of warmth, safety, and strength that left him today. She nods, and without a word she peels herself out of her compression suit and joins him. Lanaai fits her smaller form into his and steadies her breathing. The unease that generally accompanies physical contact of this nature is entirely missing, and she is a comforting presence. He is not afraid of her anymore. Garrus understands briefly that his nights without her are numbered; a thought which proves to be as terrifying as it is elating.


	33. Chapter 33

They close in Legion’s coordinates. Garrus briefs his squad about the target: a server cluster located on the surface of a dwarf garden planet in the middle of nowhere. This cluster is responsible for approximately three hundred thousand geth processes, a third of which are in control of physical hardware ranging from bipedal units to corvettes. There is even a geth dreadnought somewhere out there linked to this server cluster.

Liberating this core will gain them a significant ally. Understandably, Zorah is not enthused by the idea, and her crewmates also express disdain. Upon finding out about the waking of Legion, none of them are as sympathetic as Zorah hoped; the prejudice buried in their upbringings runs far too deep to uproot.

After several cycles, Garrus finds out that he likes working with Zorah more than he would like to admit. She is quite stiff in front of her peers and colleagues, an appearance that she feels obligated to maintain for them, but in person she is quirky and radiates a unique nervous energy. She is driven and she has better things to do with her life than spend time firing a gun at her problems. The relief of knowing that her remaining teammates have pulled through improves her mood significantly. She is quick to break her façade and speaks enthusiastically and technically with anyone who can keep up with her. Even though he tries not to compare people to Lia anymore, she really does remind him of Lia.

Zorah has a very deep knowledge of the geth that definitely has some questionable history associated with it, as she partially revealed. He contemplates putting out a research request on her name, but decides against it. He doubts that Command would be able to find anything useful anyway. He vaguely recalls her mentioning that her “father was right” in the context of Legion’s sapient qualities, so he assumes that her father is the reason she possesses such forbidden knowledge.

Garrus regularly checks on Legion to make sure that no one has tampered with him in his absence, despite Sidonis and Zorah’s high-security locking systems and safety precautions. Speaking with Legion is always a journey. His off-kilter insight is always equal parts terrifying and bizarre; he has perspectives on ordinary things that no one else in the galaxy shares. Garrus has to actively suspend his disbelief every time he enters the secured room and opens up the conversation.

It quickly becomes apparent that Legion is neither innocent nor ignorant. As he explained previously, his mission has always been to obtain and analyze behavioral data about organics. Hypothetically, Legion has several degrees in psychology given the untold quantities of data he has processed in his lifetime as a dedicated software unit. However, Legion still comes across as innocent when he _pretends_ that he does not have a sense of humor or when he _pretends_ he cannot understand sarcasm.

Sidonis and the networking team regularly report to him regarding any break-in attempts from their guests. Legion has not attempted to breach their network once… the same cannot be said for their quarian passengers, however, who occasionally poke and prod. Garrus will overlook these attempts because he assumes they are simply trying to contact their families or their loved ones. However, no amount of empathy can convince him to lift their security. For the safety of everyone on board, they must remain invisible.

They line up to make their way down to the heretic core. Their illegal stealth system, despite its vast inferiority to the cloak on the _Ketos,_ becomes their only lifeline as they enter the swarm of geth scanners. Legion tells them that he has wormed his way into the heretic communication channels and can help distract if necessary, but only as a last resort.

Tali’Zorah and one of her marines, Kal’Reegar, come with them to help operate this precarious mission. Zorah staunchly refuses to bring any more of her people down there specifically to minimize potential loss on her side. Not to mention… the garden planet on which the core rests is completely toxic to oxygen-breathing lifeforms, so it cannot be any more dangerous for them.

Garrus has Nissus begin laying a thick field of EMP mines as a contingency plan for when something inevitably goes horribly wrong. When they reach the ground, the quarians, Legion, Lo’kian, and Sidonis set up a makeshift base of operations. Garrus, moves out with his mobility to plant additional countermeasures to cover their exit.

They do not encounter any corporeal geth down here… yet. Legion helps guide them around sensor “patrols” and surveillance hotspots. In general, the last thing the geth here expect is to be found and attacked. All of their forces are up in orbit looking away, and the notion sends chills through his plates – Acronus and his people are up there in the direct line of fire should an attack occur.

If any of his anxiety bleeds into the air, his mobility do not take notice. Their trek through the thick flora around the geth core’s superstructure takes around six hours and they just barely make it back to camp before sundown. They update each other and have a moment of respite for Third. The night will only last three hours and it will be cold _as hell_. Their shuttle lives up to its over-engineering and holds fast against the weather.

Just before the sun crests over the horizon they move out in the frigid morning miasma to make their run on the server core. According to Legion, they need to make their way into one of the maintenance access ways and manually disconnect any backups. This way the heretic core will have nowhere to run when it detects Legion’s intrusion.

Legion claims the core should have no corporeal units in there, but Garrus will not allow complacency. Legion himself does not sound so sure either. Garrus has to make the difficult decision to allow Zorah to go in there alone – she is the smallest, and her existing knowledge of the setup makes her the most efficient. He feels incredibly uncomfortable allowing this, however, because he feels personally responsible for her well-being on the ground. Kal’Reegar appears to be quite irked that she would suggest such a thing and that Garrus would allow it without protest.

With all signals blue, they approach the surprisingly small structure. Zorah knows what she has to do and marches forward without any sign of hesitation, leaving the rest of them to establish a perimeter in case of an ambush. Lo’kian drops Legion’s signal amplifier down and he immediately begins scrapping the surveillance hardware. It buys Zorah enough time to slip into the building, clutching Legion’s processing core to her chest with one arm and brandishing her shotgun with the other.

Now they must sit and wait. Garrus refuses to let himself lose focus, despite how much he wants to glue his eyes to his omni-tool and monitor Tali’s progress. Acronus drops him a brief status update. It sounds like they are running out of time up there. Nissus and Talus are feverishly working to keep themselves away from geth sensors which have detected signs of their presence. Legion cannot double-task at this point so their people up in orbit are fending for themselves in a cloud of geth scanners.

Their comms go dead and they lose connection to both their ship and to Legion and Zorah. Sidonis frantically tries to bring up the line while the rest of the team raise their weapons in preparation for a fight. And yet, they hear no alarms. Garrus does not pick up the telltale signs of pressure waves from gunfire – perhaps this is just an anomalous comms failure due to faulty equipment or some planetary anomaly.

“Sidonis,” _I grow worried,_ he growls after he finally becomes impatient when Zorah does not return from the building for several minutes following the timer they set.

“Working on it,” _I was worried this entire time,_ comes the harsh reply. “Reegar-” _hear?_ he starts.

“Nothing, sir. I would have been damn sure to say something by now,” Reegar snaps. They are all tense. Garrus has only ever seen Reegar calm and collected, even when they were rescued. He assumes Reegar has some emotional investment in Zorah… In the same way he does with Acronus.

 _Shit,_ “Yellow Seven from above” Sidonis finally says, “we either need to leave in the next twenty minutes, or go to plan B and pave this place.”

Reegar glares at him but says nothing. Garrus anticipated they would have to cut it close, but not this close. There are very few ways out of this that do not result in tragedy, but the most important thing is that Acronus gets the ship out of here so she can continue the mission if they do have to roast the place. Static blasts through his headset and causes him to jolt. He looks at Sidonis who appears not to have noticed. Reegar, on the other hand, has.

“We are successful,” comes legions voice, “but we must hurry, Creator Zorah has been… has been injured.”

“ _What?_ ” Reegar demands into his comms.

“We will move in,” _attention, squad,_ Garrus replies, but Legion stops him.

“Not necessary. I have… obtained a hardware upgrade.”

“Explain!” Reegar demands into his comm.

“Sir?” _to whom do you speak?_ asks a confused Lo’kian who stands by the crimson-cloaked quarian. Garrus makes brief eye contact, enough to communicate a silent stand down. Legion must not be patched through to his squadmates. Garrus quickly rectifies the issue to avoid more confusion.

“I am exiting the building now, lower your weapons please,” Legion’s voice again.

“Potential contact,” _our guest,_ Garrus notifies his squad, “observe only.”

A single geth – a very large one, but not quite a Prime – exits the building with a bounding stride. Zorah’s body is curled against its chest and it holds one of its massive hands over her abdomen, indicating an injury.

“I can see you at two-seventy-eight point one eight, we must hurry,” Legion speaks to them, confirming their heading relative to himself. Garrus does the math in his head and confirms, but he requires one more check.

 _Halt!_ he raises his weapon, “Flash the binary of your unit designation,” he orders back. The blue and white geth does exactly as he asks. The light embedded in the front of its head flashes the letters of its name in khelish using a standard encoding. Garrus is satisfied.

 _Quickly!_ “Alright, return to base. We’re getting out of here as soon as possible.”

He orders his squad to pack it up and move back to the shuttle. Sidonis climbs into the pilot’s seat. Reegar looks incredibly stiff and does not stow his weapon. The large geth unit in here takes up more space than usual, almost comically so.

Zorah is incredibly unconscious and appears to have a nasty gash across the front of her suit, exposing her skin to the elements. The geth did an admirable job of keeping the atmosphere from seeping into the wound, but Garrus can see evidence of a chemical burn on the skin surrounding the lesion. He knows this could be fatal if she does not receive decontamination and immersion very soon.

The giant geth biped crammed in there with them is unsettling, but it has not attempted to murder them yet so he will accept it. At least the geth is not armed. Sidonis keeps them updated out of courtesy and obligation, but Garrus can clearly see that the yellow-seven status has been lifted and returned to blue. He wonders what the ruckus was about, and he wonders why he has not been directly contacted by anyone on the ship yet.

“-akarian. D…. -opy?” Acronus’ voice finally scratches through the speaker, the lousy connection obscuring her subharmonics.

“Copy. Status?” _please be safe,_

“Took some damage, but we’re clear now.”

He growls, “How much?” _any is unacceptable_

“Some. We’ll be fine, but we’ll have to return to dock for repairs.”

He emits another irritated chuff, _too close,_ “I hope this was worth the stress.”

“Enough chit-chat, we’ll follow up in debriefing.”

Acronus closes the connection. He wants to turn and yell at Legion, but whatever he and Zorah did in there seemed to solve the problem for the _Ilyx._ Legion has remained completely silent since boarding the shuttle. His massive bipedal form still holds Zorah gingerly, shifting her occasionally so blood can continue to circulate. He will wait to talk to Legion until they have Zorah stabilized and they can reconvene without the immediate threat of death hanging over their heads.

Acronus is waiting for them in the shuttle bay. A crew of fully-armored personnel approach to decontaminate the craft as quickly as possible before they flood the bay with atmosphere. The process takes all of five agonizing minutes, which he knows is commendable, but his patience is running thin and Zorah is running low on time.

Within seconds of decontamination, the bay is pressurized and shuttle doors open. Legion’s hasty exit startles Acronus who immediately draws her weapon only to holster it and shake her head. She gestures to the large geth unit to place Zorah on the prepared stretcher and then stay put. She and Reegar leave the medbay in moments.

“Debrief in twenty,” _promptly,_ she casts her voice over her shoulder as she walks out.

Once he showers off and leaves the locker room to the mess hall for a snack, Acronus materializes seemingly out of nowhere and hands him an energy bar and some kind of sweet-smelling smoothie. He is about to say something snarky about how he still has ten minutes until the debrief but decides not to. He cannot stop purring, _thank you_.

“Thank you,” _thank you,_ he finally says between bites, “you always seem to know when I need something,” _thank you…_

She snorts, _always,_ “You just went sprinting around a poisonous planet for a day without proper access to ‘real’ food…”

Garrus chews a bit and then finally says something snarky, _and yet,_ “that doesn’t change my statement.”

“Then I guess I’m good at guessing,” _or am I?_

“I doubt it,” _you never guess,_ he replies.

Debrief is eventful. Reegar joins them again, much calmer than before, and they form a circle around the shuttle’s cargo door. Legion recounts his experience in there.

“We successfully cut off the connections to the backup servers, isolating the heretic core. I made my way into the system to upload new weight tables and replace a vast quantity of corrupted, reaper-influenced training data with proper, safe data.”

Sidonis nods along as Legion speaks.

“As we completed the procedure with Creator Zorah’s constant assistance and no external issues, she was attacked by the geth corpus over which I am now have control. I… had to risk a core meltdown in order to act quickly-enough to protect Creator Zorah. The overload she used on the offending geth unit gave me approximately two hundred and seventy-five milliseconds to… forcefully abort the processes running the ‘Praetor’ and take control.”

Without saying it directly, they all understand that Legion killed one of his brethren to protect Tali.

Legion says something to Reegar that evokes an unwelcome sense of familiarity in him – and with it comes a particular unease. He cannot quite pull the entire memory together before he notices Acronus go rigid and her eyes bulge. The rest of his group all snap to attention when they see it. When she speaks to dismiss them it is with the cold voice of a dead woman.

Garrus follows her out and she makes no effort to stop him. He trails her all the way into her nest without a word. Upon arriving he finally manages to remember: she spoke an identical phrase to him once. He still does not know much about her past, but perhaps she had some bad experiences with torture or modification which would cause a post-traumatic stall like that. It might also explain why most – if not all – of her plates look inexplicably “reconstructed” to him… was she brought so close to death that her entire body had to be repaired? Was she experimented upon so heavily that her body is mostly artificial?

Her blood is blue and her body is warm; she is no machine.

Modification and reconstruction might explain how she can be so… perfect; or rather, how she can fit someone else’s definition of “perfect,” which happens to include his own. What has she endured? What is she hiding from the rest of them? From him? Right now she needs to be grounded, and that is where he hopes to help. Garrus strips off his armor and then hers without encountering resistance. Her guardplates splay easily and she allows him to slip inside her.

He feels her return to him momentarily, as he moves within her carefully, making sure that the rest of his body stays connected to hers at all times. Her face is buried into his neck and her breathing is irregular. After some undefined period of time he feels her begin to breathe to his rhythm and her heart beat stabilize. Her frantic and disoriented subharmonics give way to purrs of satiation until finally she begins to nudge him out.

He draws her head back and looks at her for a while, wondering if speaking to her about this episode is the right choice right now… or ever, for that matter. He is not a psychologist and he will not pretend to be; he does not want to damage her by offering inadequate help. He does not want to bring up a sensitive topic and then pressure her to speak about it if this is how she might respond, but he _hates_ to see her to suffer all by herself.

And that was not a rut either, that was something far closer to… bonding. His forehead hovers just centimeters from hers, and he can feel the pull in the space between them, but he draws back and gives her space. Eventually she sits up with her usual demeanor fully restored and begins replacing her armor. He quietly does the same and follows her as she leaves the pod to resume her duties.

* * *

Initially, Zorah seemed like a bit of an intolerant and unintelligent military figure, but it becomes apparent after working with her that she is quite the opposite. Acronus is acutely aware of the irony in her own judgment. Zorah is somewhat shy when outside the presence of her teammates, and she has an endless knowledge of the geth systems. Her assignment as a lieutenant is a result of obligation, and she accepted it because she needed authority to put her knowledge to good use. Acronus can easily see the parallels between her own choices and Tali’s. It seems as if she is keeping her expertise with the geth quiet from her people in order to hide form scrutiny. Acronus can tell that her history with the geth runs much deeper than she will ever speak of.

Zorah’s insight gives them a much clearer picture of what they will be going up against once they deploy. Recordings from her team’s helmet cams and access to her databases means they will have a decent shot at infiltration.

Acronus allows Zorah and Legion take charge of organizing their plans to infiltrate the heretic server cluster. The more information they have, the more hopeful Acronus becomes in the potential of having quarian and geth allies in this reaper conflict. Following a cycle packed with meetings and relative stillness, she finds herself on a tangent, lounging in Garrus’ pod once again as they finish up their strategy.

Garrus usually finds Acronus without forewarning, and when he does, he always something to eat or drink. Since he asked her to nest with him he has become more colloquial and relaxed around her, [ which she heartily enjoys. It feels like she has her old Garrus back to some extent, and it makes her happy. However, when they talk, he usually keeps it work-related because he must still be afraid that he might be wasting her time. Sometimes, though, he takes off on wild tangents. She will always follow him down these conversational alleyways, without hesitation, because no one else can appreciate them like she can. His mind is not nurtured properly here.

“What if you woke up tomorrow, and found out everything you’ve known for the past twenty-some years is dream, Garrus?” _consider._

“A bit heavy for fifteen after zero, don’t you think, Lanaai?” _strange existential question._

He must think she is joking. Her subharmonics must have given her away because his expression shifts.

“What prompted that question?” _serious?_ his mandibles close softly against his jaw. The unspoken follow-up questions linger in the air. _Are you unhappy? Do you feel unsafe? What is eating at you?_

“Not sure… feeling more anxious than normal. I can’t shake a feeling…” _like I was born with it._

Garrus stares directly into her and probably sees Lia in there somewhere.

“I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that we are not dreaming right now, Lanaai,” _what do you need?_

She does not reply to him, but basks in the reassurance of his presence. He is right, and she trusts him.

The following cycle, Acronus speaks with the other quarian techs after Garrus’ team drops. They have a little more to offer than Zorah has already provided, so she grants them limited access to sensor equipment and network resources. They are antsy, so allowing them to resume their work will ease their minds. In the meantime, she has Nissus and Talus begin following Garrus’ complicated pathing algorithm to lay down EMP mines without being detected.

“In case” he had said. If he put this much effort into plan B then he truly was worried they would run into complications on the ground. She runs their ship hot with full power to sensors and stealth; no reason not to be overly-cautious.

They keep sensor coverage of the resident geth fleet constant while they lay their mine field. The steady and soft pings of Garrus’ deadman signal is soothing and reassuring, like listening to his heartbeat. The subtle pink noise of the ship’s temperature conditioning systems and the occasional operational chatter between the comms specialists on deck creates an eerie sense of tension.

Garrus’ team remains down there overnight. She had protested at first, but Garrus immediately pointed out that the nighttime calms the weather… the weather which blows around a completely toxic atmosphere and spores from the toxic flora during the day. She monitors their progress and occasionally answers questions, but it is mostly quiet. She has to force herself to sleep so she can stay sharp in the following cycle, but the constant worry about his well being holds her eyes open. What is it about being in love with him that causes her to forget that he knows exactly what he is doing?

She wakes up the morning and bolts through her routine so she can get right back on the bridge to supervise their progress. The ground team has already moved out and now poises just outside the server housing. Zorah takes Legion inside while the rest of them wait. She hears Nissus swear under her breath as she passes by the cockpit, and the ship begins to buzz a little louder. The rumble of the mass effect cores loading up gradually augments.

“Coincidental movements on scanners, Captain,” _we have to move,_ she clips. Acronus knows what that means – put euphemistically: the geth fleet understands that they have visitors. She manages to contact Garrus to give him an update. The geth patrols have determined that there might be an intrusion in their sensor fields. Some of the EMP mines have stopped responding, likely due to geth hacking attempts.

The deadman ping from Garrus’ comm unit suddenly ceases and she jolts upright. The networking team has taken notice and are now scrambling to figure out what the issue is. She should not have allowed Sidonis to go down there, leaving them vulnerable up here to a potential electronic attack. She orders their networking systems to be cutoff in order to stop any further attempts, knowing that it will leave Garrus’ team isolated.

She sees no other way around this. Either they leave themselves vulnerable and risk losing their ship, or keep themselves “safe” by remaining hidden for as long as possible. Nissus informs her that they are now being tracked and followed by a curious geth scout. Their stealth systems mask them well and they would appear on any powerful sensor array as barely a meter across. But they still appear… and they do not belong.

Knowing it will blow their cover, Acronus orders the networks to be restored so she can try to get a signal down to the ground team. They have to hurry up and either destroy the heretic cluster to disable the fleet, or flee from the threat to preserve the crew. Yellow seven is the highest they go without declaring a direct engagement. The situation is extremely volatile and might erupt at any moment.

The scout ship tracking them fires a “warning shot” which manages to connect with one of their maneuvering thrusters, stalling it out. Acronus can either order full power to shields and remove their cloak or keep them minimized and risk taking another damaging shot. Another scout joins its companion now, both of which are taking conservative potshots in their general direction. She thinks the geth have realized that there is a much larger hidden ship here based on that last hit.

She is about twenty seconds from going to plan C and detonating the EMP net, which would stun the entire geth fleet. It would also destroy the server cluster on the ground and Legion with it, as well as her people’s equipment. They would suffocate as their regulators failed and then die when they breathed the poisonous air. The shuttle would be safe, but they are not close-enough to the shuttle. Even if they were, they would deplete their oxygen supply long before they could fix the blown electronics. She cannot play hide and seek forever, and she will be damned if she leaves her teammates on that planet at the mercy of the elements and the other geth just so she can save her own ass.

She begins to panic at the familiar sensation of losing control. Garrus would be disappointed with her for an uneven head right now, and she pulls herself together for him. She has a job to do and fear is merely an obstacle; they are not dead until they are dead.

The scout ships suddenly cease their movements and their guesswork, which means Legion must have succeeded at something. She risks it and enables the network so she can open a comm line to the ground. The deadman signal starts up again and her heart rate finally ebbs. She reaches out to Garrus and revels in the sound of his voice, slumping into her seat. She relays their current status and he sounds quite displeased, as expected. She decides to cut him off so he will stop stressing out until the debrief where he can stress out all he likes.

Sidonis also gives her an update… about their new “guest,” or rather their existing guest with a hardware upgrade. Everyone on board will be extremely distraught over the addition of a large geth biped, especially the quarians in their care. She is already miffed, but at least Legion will have some more autonomy. Perhaps he will grow on the rest of the crew as they learn to trust him, and she figures that a true bipedal platform will make it easier to comprehend his individuality.

Acronus figures Zorah would do a better job introducing Legion to her teammates, so she puts off making any “diplomatic” plans for now. Unfortunately, Zorah is in critical condition, the med bay must be prepped and decontaminated for emergency immersion treatment. The commotion will definitely grab the attention of the quarian crew, most of whom have temporary quarters near there and one of whom is a medical specialist working _in the medbay._

She micromanages as much as she can, attempting to deny herself any indication that she might be losing control over the situation. One foot before the other. Shuttle bay prep is next on her list.

She knows Zorah is running out of time. Her crew are the best, but even she has issues controlling her patience when a life is on the line and every second counts. The large, cobalt and white geth unit that rushes from the shuttle bay is startling and she reacts on instinct. She curses to herself, recognizing this as the “hardware upgrade” Sidonis mentioned.

She eyeballs Zorah’s unconscious form and gestures to the prepared stretcher pod. The large corpus gingerly lowers her into the pod and backs away quickly, allowing Reegar to rush her towards the medbay without further hesitation. Acronus can see the rest of the ground team all need a shower and quick break before they debrief so she dismisses them temporarily, allowing her gaze to linger on Garrus, who glares at her for a moment before heading into the locker room.

Acronus is aware that she treats Garrus preferentially… but he has truly earned preference from merit alone. This crew is so stable because Garrus is such a powerful and charismatic leader, and his stoic demeanor inspires strength. They survived up here because their pilots and their comms team were drawing upon the confidence of _her Garrus._

She grabs Garrus a power bar and a protein smoothie from stock out of instinct, finding herself standing outside the locker room wondering how she got there. She pushes the items into Garrus’ hands when he strolls out and he accepts them graciously, looking far less grumpy than he was ten minutes prior.

She cannot stop the slight blush as he offers her a genuine-sounding statement and rolling purr. She does her best to play it off like is she is not a hormonal animal. Garrus smells much sweeter now that his armor is completely clean and his pores are open from the sonic and steam shower. She stands by him in comfortable silence, checking on her other organizational tasks, before turning her attention to Legion briefly.

“Keep yourself hidden for now, I will speak with you in a moment,” _please,_ she says quietly, approaching the large geth unit.

“Affirmative, Captain Acronus,” he nods and the flaps on his head flare. He sits down inside the shuttle and goes completely still.

In their debriefing, Legion presents an enormously-detailed explanation complete with video, audio, information logs, and even three-dimensional scans. It quickly becomes apparent just how lucky Zorah is to be alive. The poorly-calculated strike from the large geth Praetor only pierced her upper epidermal layer, and the completely sterile atmosphere inside the server housing saved her from infection. The overload gave Legion a very narrow point of entry in which he was still able to gain control.

Legion does not play up the true severity of the encounter because he is trying to keep the rest of them calm, but a brief glance over some of the high-level performance metrics indicates otherwise. He was running extremely overclocked without abandon, having disabled all of the thermal safeguards which would have limited the speed of his processors. He was willing to die to make sure Zorah had a fighting chance. The risk paid off… they are both alive because of it. After the group clears out, Reegar lingers to thank Legion for his work.

“I am expendable, Creator Lieutenant Reegar, you are not,” Legion replies says. Acronus’ blood runs cold and the world begins to crumble around her. She cannot figure out what is going on, but whatever it is, she wants to go curl up into a ball and die. She remembers losing her fathers, her teammates, Mindior… the fire in the sky, the fire in her chest, the chill of the void…

The other figures in the room stare at her with their mechanical eyes and click their jagged, metal teeth together. She cannot breathe because, like Legion, she is nothing more than a machine: a manufactured image with the memories of someone else. Her blood is black and the love she feels for Garrus is merely an illusion produced by her thin, organic shell. In fact, she cannot be certain if she was ever _real_ to begin with. To whom does her body belong? Who did she _murder_ to have it? What if _all_ of her memories are fabricated? Who _is_ she? Her plates start to jitter and spasm underneath her armor.

She dismisses everyone while trying as hard as possible to keep her balance and then immediately makes for her sleeping pod. Garrus follows her but she simply does not have the energy or the motivation to stop him. She barely remembers the way to her own nest and when she finally gets in there, she immediately feels claustrophobic. Unfortunately for her, Garrus is blocking her exit route.

She can no longer tell which way is down. She focuses on his face, the only thing that is not swimming all over her field of view, and in moments she feels the warm sensation of relief enter her system. The familiar and comfortable sensation of being filled by him gives her something to latch onto. Her arms wrap around his neck and pull him closer, so she can clearly see his eyes in the thick of this welter. This is not the correct way to solve this problem, but it certainly appears to be working.

Lanaai knows Garrus will want to talk about this episode, especially because it is the first he has ever witnessed. She will not be much help, because it is the first that she has experienced as well. She can feel the heat and the electricity in the minuscule gap between her crest and his, but he finally pulls back and moves to one end of the nest. Garrus seems to have fixed the immediate problem, as he usually does, and now he is observing… as he _always_ does.

The breakdown will make as much sense to him as it does to her. She never imagined that a simple phrase could have such a profound effect on her when she has no previous medical history of post-traumatic stress disorder. She feels better for the time being, however, and dons her armor once more so she can resume her job. Garrus follows her silently but closely in step, as if he is ready to catch her at a moment’s notice. Sleeping tonight is going to be a challenge, especially now that Mindior is hanging like a corpse in the back of her mind. She had completely forgotten about it.

She is going to have to talk to Litha.


	34. Chapter 34

Garrus does not speak with Acronus about the episode because he trusts her to handle it. He does not even mention it to the doctor because he knows Lanaai would appreciate that he keeps out of her personal issues. It does not mean that he lacks concern – he is greatly concerned about it – but he respects her privacy too much to consider breaching it. She will elaborate if she wants to because she knows she can trust him. Right?

According to the medical staff, Zorah has recovered and she is waking. He goes to talk to her while Acronus splits off to speak with Legion. He freezes in the doorway to the immersion annex and cannot stop himself from absorbing the image before him before immediately turning away. He did not think to check if she was still in the immersion tank because he just assumed that “waking” meant fully awake and finished with treatment. It takes a moment for him to realize that he is looking at a quarian outside of their suit… entirely naked.

Zorah’s purple skin is striped with elaborate and graceful _iliur_ subcutaneous patterns, making her already-pleasing figure a work of art. She is surprisingly muscular with very little extra mass to pad out her curves, so her entire body is a map of shadows and midtones as the curvature changes. He is about to step out to give her more time to wake and spare her some dignity, but she stirs. Her eyes shift underneath her eyelids before they open quickly and find the room. Her lips part and she sucks in a deep breath.

She glances over at him and notices his presence. The vertical slits running from her eyelids to her hairline flare slightly and bioluminesce in sync with her irises.

“Garrus,” she greets him happily and then glances down and realizes she is uncovered. Every _iliur_ stripe intensifies and her face saturates with cobalt. He props up his brows and waits for her to continue.

“Uh… I apologize for my indecency, Garrus,” her voice sounds odd without the breathing filter getting in the way of the translator. He finds it pleasant.

“Don’t worry about it, Tali” _I am glad you made it out,_ he waves his hand, “they told you were awake, but they neglected to tell me you were still in the tank. I assumed. I can return in a couple of hours if you-”

“No,” she interrupts him, “No it’s just… I know turians don’t care and usually quarians don’t either, but it’s weird to be outside of my suit… anyway, last thing I remember thinking was ‘I am definitely going to die.’ But here I am: not dead. Care to fill me in?”

“Of course – that is why I’m here,” _to the point,_ he replies.

“Aww… I thought you were visiting because you were being friendly,” she rolls her statement with sarcasm and perhaps a touch of flirtation. He gives her a blank stare and she laughs feebly.

_You wound me,_ “Tali, you’re in an immersion tank.”

She blushes again, “How about we forget I said anything. Anyway, the mission, Garrus?”

“Legion nearly sacrificed himself to save your life – he took control over the geth Praetor platform that attacked you and burned the barrel down to the final grains, so to speak,” _he killed his brother for you._

“So do we have a Praetor… on board right now?” she bristles and her markings flash.

“No matter how you look at it, _Legion_ is on board with us still, he just has some new hardware,” _I’m not worried._

“My team is going to go insane if they find out about that.”

_Tell me about it, sister,_ “We guessed. We haven’t told them about it yet. I’m not sure if Reegar will-”

“He won’t,” she cuts in, sounding excited by the mention of his name. The patterns light up again.

“Probably best to keep in that way,” _confusion is the root of chaos._

“I’ll tell them,” Zorah raises her head, “they trust my judgment.”

_Fine with me,_ “I’ll let you. So now we have a geth armada in our – meaning yours _and_ mine – allegiance thanks to Legion.”

Zorah says nothing for a while as she processes the information.

“I’ll be exiled when the admiralty finds out. And they _will_ find out,” she says quietly. Garrus completely overlooked this and he feels stupid for not considering it sooner. His heart leaps into his throat.

_Spirits, my apologies,_ he rumbles, “I’m sorry.”

“The Quarian governance harshly judges this type of behavior in a vicious cycle of prejudice. I wish it were different… my family name will do me no favors on a trial.”

_Explain?_ “What do you mean?”

Tali pauses and purses her lips in thought, while the markings on her forehead appear to breathe softly.

“My father, Rael’Zorah… rebuilt a geth. Illegally. It killed his team.”

_I am sorry for your loss,_ “I’m-”

“We weren’t really close,” she dodges his pity, but he can tell she still feels the loss, “and now I’ll have to come clean about my excursion here, why our transport is gone, why two of the five marines under my lead are dead, and one was severely injured. I will do everything in my power to defend my subordinates, most of whom are close friends of mine…” She sucks in a breath and breathes out slowly, “but my own chances are slim. I suppose it is worth it to save them, even if I can’t ever go back…”

_If you need asylum,_ “I can offer safe passage and I can offer our assistance with any legal action if you need it. We know that what you’ve done is going to save us. We have proof.”

Tali snorts, “They aren’t going to believe your evidence. The board is… difficult.”

_Why is everyone like this?_ “I shouldn’t be saying this, but we would welcome your presence on board, Tali. _If_ you face hardship, you have a place among us,” _If you do, not when._

“Thank you, Garrus.”

“I’ll let you get dressed,” he nods and leaves.

Tali finds him later in the cycle once she has had some time to regain her balance. She already wants to get back to her liveship, though it may be difficult. Doing her best to sound grateful and inoffensive, she asks him to drop her, her team, and Legion off at a secured rendezvous point so she can return to her duties with the flotilla and present the outcome of her mission. Garrus needs to speak with Acronus about their immediate plans and capabilities before he can make any promises to Tali.

In general, Acronus is a very accommodating individual who tries very hard to give everyone what they want, but their ship is damaged and needs repairs before any undiagnosed issues become worse. Although, knowing her, Acronus is probably out there in her mobility suit inspecting the damage personally. Zorah still thanks Garrus as he leaves, understanding the situation.

A cycle later, after some more diplomatic discussion with Zorah, they agree on one of their compromise locations. She knows about the reaper threat by now, courtesy of several terabytes of supporting data, living accounts, and Legion’s personal archives. She agrees to use as much leverage as possible to aid them in the developments of evacuation and preservation craft. Garrus makes sure to remind her that she has allies in the Hierarchy if she needs them, and provides her with his personal contact information.

When the reapers invade… the exodus will be upon them and it will be legendary in scope. The quarians have experience building habitable and enduring liveships, and there will likely be _billions_ of refugees after this war is over. Zorah seems to grasp how serious he is from his tone, because his usual snarky and cynical humor dies when he speaks on this subject.

Their craft limps to the rendezvous point near some dusty, uninhabitable planet. Garrus and Acronus accompany the team of quarians to their pickup and then bid them goodbye over the rising anxiety caused by the presence of Legion. Then, just like that, they are gone – after only two and a half periods. At least they managed to make their time meaningful… absurdly meaningful, actually. This acquisition of allies and acquaintances will hopefully have a significant impact on their preparation efforts.

* * *

Acronus cannot pretend like her episode did not happen, but she still does not want to talk about it. Mindior torments her now, as it always has, and she supposes that it feels normal to wake up every other cycle panicking. Those nightmares indicate a deeper trauma, but she can deal with it. If she experiences a relapse of this… new crisis, then she will consider speaking to the ship’s psychiatrist, but right now she has work to do.

Garrus offers to go update Zorah so she can go arrange some ground rules with Legion now that he is mobile and potentially dangerous. She agrees and they part ways. She realizes once she is half way to the shuttle bay that Garrus did not bother to wash her scent from him and she feels a tingling sensation rise in her throat the more she thinks about it. Legion waits for her where she left him, having adjusted his posture only slightly.

Kal’Reegar and the tech specialist from before, Tal’vi’Koran, make their way into the shuttle bay after she pings them. Sidonis shows up without prompting, somehow knowing he would need to be here. Upon noticing Legion, the quarian researcher cowers and splutters for a moment before realizing that there is no danger.

Acronus wishes to grant Legion some wandering rights in the shuttle bays, and as long as he keeps himself out of the way of the day-to-day repair and fabrication operations, she cannot imagine his presence will be intrusive. She expects that he will be quite unpopular with the crew, who are understandably quite wary of the geth in general. Garrus pings her while she finishes up with Spar and Second and informs her that Zorah wishes to speak to her own crew about Legion. She readily agrees to that. In the meantime, she decides to go ask Legion some more questions, as she has concerns about the lethality of his corpus and combat disposition.

“Legion,” _there you are,_ she enters the shuttle bay and spots him crouching near the wall. The metal flaps on his optical unit flare and he rises to his full height.

“Captain Acronus,” he greets her in his endearing, curious-sounding tone.

“Mind if I ask you some… safety questions?” _I will pry._

“I will answer any questions that I can.”

“Is your platform trained for, or in possession of any combat lethality?” _to kill people?_

“You are concerned that I will act in violence against your crew,” he voices her exact thoughts, “my software platform was never intended for combat. This hardware, while powerful, is also not optimized for it… as we already witnessed. I will do everything in my power to avoid violent confrontation at all costs.”

“That sounds reassuring, but you must understand my skepticism,” _geth tend to attack people,_ she replies flatly. The flaps on his “head” sink slowly and then pop up again.

“I dream,” he says. Acronus says nothing in reply, waiting for him to elaborate on such an insane statement – one that she has come to understand as entirely plausible given their interactions with Legion. She starts recording this event because she knows that Zorah would want to hear.

“My dream is to be the interface between the geth and the quarian people. I was created and ‘raised’ to fulfil this role… before the conflicts began… and I wish to pursue it in the way that you pursue the defense and safety of your people. Rannoch is beautiful and the children of my creators deserve their home; but we want to experience it _with_ them. We turned to violence in reaction to violence, but ultimately peace is the only way. War is a pointless struggle that only leads to fear and hatred. I find it _disgusting._ ”

“The admiralty would probably be very happy to hear you say that, Legion. _I_ am very happy to hear that. But both sides are polarized,” _including yours._

“I realize that,” he replies, sounding dejected, “my fellow platforms will have difficultly trusting my unempirical word when all evidence suggests that the quarians will only ever seek to exterminate us. Because our sapience is a… is a _mistake._ ”

“It _was_ a mistake,” _the truth,_ she affirms, “but that does not make it right to correct through genocide. They don’t understand what you’ve become after several-hundred years to think.”

“Captain,” he sounds apprehensive now, shy perhaps.

“Yes?” _go ahead._

“I may… possess a highly-refined ballistics and tracking program.”

Acronus lifts a brow plate at the bashful revelation, “then I’m sure you and Commander Vakarian will get along quite well.”

Acronus does not want to test that right now, but she is sure Garrus would probably like to pit his skill against software. With Sidonis’ blessing, she authorizes limited access to their networking center so he can gather and process useful information on-demand. He has proven himself to be trustworthy so far.

“In the meantime, Captain, how can I be of purpose on board? I would very much like to help in anyway I can,” the expressive plates on his head jitter nervously.

_A moment for thought,_ she hums and thinks, “I have no tasks for you now, Legion. But I’m sure the bay crew would appreciate your reach and strength. I apologize if manual work is not to your liking, but it is all I can think of right now that you can immediately start with,” _I will have to ask around,_ “and feel free to talk with them if you want. You’re interesting, and they’re all ‘nerds.’”

She meets up with Garrus shortly afterwards to discuss how to break this to the crew.

“Acronus,” _greetings,_ he nods to her when she finds him, “Tali wants off the ship.”

She deflates.

_Damn,_ “This might sound selfish, but I was hoping for some more time with Legion.”

Garrus’ mandibles flick outwards, “already trying to date the robot, Acronus?” _I jest._

She snorts, _ha!_ “Yeah sure. But seriously he would be a game-changer in the field and on the mission in general. Not to devalue Zorah’s contributions.”

_I agree,_ Garrus rumbles in ascent.

“And also…” _a rare occurrence_ “Legion is a good _person._ ”

Garrus looks at her silently.

“Yeah,” _he is,_ his statement sounds like a concession.

But Legion is not under her jurisdiction… in fact he should not be under Zorah’s jurisdiction either; he _should_ be granted the freedom of choice to do as he pleases. However, based on their conversations, she knows that he wishes to return with the quarians and work on ending their several-hundred-year-long war. Admirable, of course. Acronus’ own crew needs to return to Palaven for repairs as soon as possible anyway.

“Legion also wants off this ship…” she sighs, _he dreams._

The turians who overhear Zorah’s announcement to her crewmembers set the ship alight with gossip. Someone will likely to relay this to Command, who still knows nothing about this particular mission, and she will receive a sternly-worded message with no real repercussions. The presence of a geth on board ruffles some fringes, but after several hours of receiving no reprimand, she finds some of the engineering team chatting with Legion in the shuttle bay as if they were old friends.

Acronus returns to Legion as they near the rendezvous to send him off with some final words. He makes quite sure that he has the ability to contact her and that he will do everything in his capacity to herd the geth fleet he has acquired. If this ever gets out it will be the end of turian standing within the galactic community, no matter how they attempt to argue their case. It may also invoke martial action against the quarians.

The already-straining relations between the turians and the council would be snapped like a twig for effectively obtaining control over a geth fleet. Legion understands the need for discretion, but he wants to put the quarians first. She finds his motivation and passion to be quite admirable and noble, but she also knows that the reapers will see no difference between the quarians and any other sapient species, including the non-indoctrinated geth. Without geth support in the upcoming war they are as good as dead. The geth have unparalleled manufacturing capacity, and if leveraged correctly, they will easily complete the sphere station in several sections once they have the full schematic.

Garrus catches her up on the plans he and Zorah worked through, and she wholeheartedly agrees. Acronus was thinking more about employing the intelligence of the quarian scientific teams to help them rationalize the sphere station, but ultimately Garrus’ vision has a more cooperative and widespread outlook. There will be war and there will be exodus. People’s lives will be upended and torn apart, and with nowhere to go, billions will stand and die without ever having a fighting chance. Billions more will be crushed under the weight of their starving brothers and sisters once it ends. She hopes the quarians can help ease the inevitable stress of the refugees.

Acronus talks with Special Forces command who have acknowledged the beginnings of construction on the sphere station. Acronus finds some degree of peace knowing that even if someone does attempt to hijack it, they will never know how to fire it. That information is kept soundly within herself, Garrus and T’soni.

Acronus is quite shocked that the Alliance pulls through on their end of the deal, and she will remember the day when she receives the IFF links of over a hundred incoming Alliance craft. She watches them materialize from FTL in clumps, with the very largest starships arriving one at a time.

The Alliance has sent over teams of engineers and contracted companies to build a colossal system of thrusters to give the immobile station the ability to move decently quickly. They estimate that it can relay itself given the amount of element zero stored at its core, but they do not want to take any chances. They are very certain that it can undergo an FTL transfer without issue, but they have to crawl before they can limp their way to the nearest relay.

The Alliance cohabitates the space with the turian fleet and follow directions without judgment or skepticism. The two species seem to be getting along. In the meantime, Acronus has been assigned her own personal fleet to preside over.

“When the war starts,” _I believe you,_ the Primarch said, admitting personally to its inevitability. It makes the imminence of it become much more tangible to her.

She now has an unmanageable quantity of subordinates to micromanage and it takes away from her ability to do anything else with her time – which includes spending her off hours with Garrus… because there are no off hours anymore.

Acronus gives up any attempts to engage with the council. She knows the turian and human councilors will take her side now, but the salarian and asari councilors always take up opposition and run them into the ground. She wants more resources devoted to the sphere station project and they _always_ refuse. She finds it unfortunate that, when the reapers invade, they will be woefully unprepared. And when they attempt to commandeer whatever assistance they can once they realize they are staring into the face of their extinction, they will find out the hard way that nothing is left over for them.

* * *

Garrus helps offload some of the command work for Acronus, knowing that she is overworked and starved for both sleep and company. He always reserves chunks of his schedule to spend time in her presence, knowing that he has calming effect on her, especially when she can vent her frustration to him privately and without fearing his reaction to it. They have not rutted in a while, and he is starting to consider asking her again, but he is nervous about the slippery slope he is currently perched atop. He knows what is going on here, but he does not want to acknowledge it. He knows of the power in union, but they also need to keep themselves focused on their crew and their people.

T’soni keeps contact with her agents in the field who supply them with useful updates that command misses. Her resources are much better at observing non-council space, so they are aware of mounting clan conflict on Tuchanka and the mobilization of a Batarian hegemony fleet. The Hanar and Drell have ignored the entire thing to their short-term benefit, but long-term catastrophe.

Solus plugs away at his projects, seeming to do just fine on their craft. The Hierarchy noticed him transfer but said nothing when Garrus endorsed his presence here. Mordin is attempting to evaluate whether or not indoctrination is something that can be detected and prevented against. It seems that he, T’soni, and Sidonis spend a great deal of time working together, and from what Garrus can tell, they may be getting closer to actually building a prototype. Garrus is also vaguely aware that Mordin is an information broker of sorts, and keeps in contact with former STG and other elusive contacts. Between the salarian and the asari, they have a very powerful network.

Garrus continues to maintain communications with both Legion and Zorah, who have had little success convincing the quarian admiralty to rally behind their cause. At the very least Zorah has not been exiled from the Migrant Fleet as the board found the fruits of her labor to be entirely worth the risk. Legion, acting as an autonomous unit, claims he will be sending over several geth production fleets in the next week or so to aid them. It appears that he has been spending his time gaining control over the other heretic geth he once called his “brothers and sisters.”

It is not the evidence that they already have that starts to make the council worried, it is the continued reports of these “squid ships” and the increases of hostile geth presence nearer to the Citadel. The council denies the possibility of the reapers as Garrus and Acronus know it, but they are willing to admit that the geth are a threat. Instead of addressing the problem directly they blame the quarians and refuse to send out official aid. The quarians, of course, have nothing to do with the geth attacks but their voice on the Citadel reaches no one.

The Citadel is quickly descending into madness. The wards are stratifying heavily into zones of turians and humans, and salarians and asari. Other species have to attempt to reconcile their relationships and pick a side depending on where they live. Sickening. Establishments are beginning to post prejudicial signage and refusing to service certain species. C-Sec strains to contain outbreaks of civil violence and quell its own internal conflicts. Everything is going to shit and there is little that can be done about it. They have to win one war to fight the other.

The asari and salarian governments cannot exactly declare war because they now know that they cannot trifle with an allied system of turians and humans. It is nearly enough to convince the council to make a formal statement about the reapers and the preparations required, but they keep stalling… admitting to the truth of the invasion would mean ceding control and admitting that they were wrong. The asari and salarian councilors always vote against the idea of a public statement, citing mass hysteria as a potential repercussion… Garrus is quite certain that the Citadel cannot become any more hysterical than it already is.

It bothers him that the asari still have more political presence that all three council races combined, because they saturate the polls and policies with their opinions. Usually that works out for everyone, but right now their short-sightedness is obscuring the long-term nightmare. It really seems like they are doing everything they can to maintain their control and their standing over the other council races now that they seem to be losing face.

The structure which was known to them simply as “the sphere station” earns a stupid codename from the human contingency working on it: _Apophis._ Garrus encourages the turian crew to avoid calling it that but, like _“Titan,”_ _everyone_ begins to refer to it as such. It seems that no matter which specie, everyone appreciates a good, terrible codename. He realizes that he cannot escape it once the name appears in subject lines and official documentation in both English _and_ sloppily-approximated _Praexus_ as something like _Ae’polfis._

The first cycle in which they begin to move _Apophis_ is nerve-wracking, but by the end of the section it becomes standard procedure. They move it in four-cycle chunks so they can stop and inspect the entire thing for significant damage after each maneuver. They panic when the structure nearly relays itself under the field bloom from the FTL engines attached to it, but they discover that moving the absolutely monumental structure takes much less energy than they initially thought. It is almost as if the station is affixed to an invisible counterweight, and they can push it with their fingers. This means they reach their destination way ahead of schedule… by several sections.

The small victory is a relief, one which he enjoys in the company of Lanaai. She is the only one he asks anymore, and no one else has as much of an effect on him as she does. His body remembers hers now, and the comfortable familiarity of slipping inside her is enough to quell any tumultuous nightmare splitting his head. Her form seems to fit just perfectly with his.

He sees Acronus regularly, and has not gone outside of her quarters for relief knowing that he cannot find it anywhere else. She is warmer to him now and she has taken her rightful place in his heart and mind: as a successor to one lost love rather than a replacement. He plans to give themselves some more time because he does not want to rush into an invasion with his captain wrapped around his waist, nor would he want the same for her. He wants to wait for the right moment to bind rather than hastily dumping the commitment onto her in the middle of their busy routines. He needs to have time to devote to her.

He looks up from his workstation when Acronus approaches him one day looking agitated.

“We’re being transferred to a new ship,” _despite my protest,_ she scowls.

“What?” _you can’t be serious, but I know you are,_ he responds lamely, faltering in disbelief. The news confuses him because he does not understand why Command would arrange for it. He questions the decision and she starts to rant about how command works in mysterious ways and she is bothered that they are not transparent-enough for her. She says he will receive details as well, but they told her early.

She appears visibly relaxed by the time she is done talking with him, and offers her company to the mess hall to grab something to eat. He agrees – he cannot think of any reason why he would deny her anything, really.

Their new ship is called the _Indictor_ and she will have a hybrid crew, reminiscent of the _Nocveus_. Garrus is not particularly excited about that, but he supposes it is for the best. It makes sense from a tactical perspective because they will have immediate communication between human and turian command on board one craft. They have not received dossiers yet and they hope that their human crewmates will be as competent as those aboard the _Nocveus_.

The ship herself is quite impressive: she is an assault cruiser bearing a striking resemblance to the _Ilyx_ , just _larger_. Her reported assortment of munitions is dreadfully anorexic for an assault carrier of her class, which means she probably carries a number of unreported illegal weaponry on board. The council have not modified the in-place munitions regulations, but at this point no one in Command cares, so _Indictor_ ignores them entirely.

There is no way the operation will run as smoothly as it did back then with this scale. The potential for interpersonal conflict practically doubles with every extra crew member, and particularly when the relations between the Hierarchy and the Alliance are strained. Acronus is completely indifferent about the whole thing. The human contingency for the new starship arrives independently of the existing Alliance fleet here.

Of course Joker is the first to shuffle into the CIC. That means…

“Vakarian! Truly a sight for sore eyes… making my eyes sore just looking you, you spiky bastard.”

Garrus snorts, having forgotten Joker’s “tact.”

_I jest,_ “Don’t make me walk over there and accidentally breathe on you, Joker. Don’t want to injure you before you even touch the yoke,” he retorts. Garrus remembers Joker is sensitive about the bone disease, except when used humorously. English feels so strange to speak after so long without uttering a word of it. Even when he spoke to Anderson he was going through the translator, having forgotten to switch off the automatic service. He keeps his translator off while on board, because everyone around him speaks _Praexus, including T’soni._ Solus is the only exception, but they usually converse in Common.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Vakarian, let’s fly this spaceship!” Joker strolls on by several shocked crew members, but most of the turians present on the bridge remember him and chuckle. Nissus approaches from the other end of the room, having just woken from her resting hours. She begins to ask a question only to streak past once she notices her friend. The _loud_ reunion ensues at the helm.

When he turns back, Williams is standing there, gazing at him. Her expression is perplexing; she looks quite surprised but also… oddly elated. A crooked smile breaks across her face. They _made_ it.

“Ash,” _you made it,_ he speaks more to himself than to her. Her formerly-long raven-colored hair has been cut short. He can tell she is a different woman than she was the last time they talked several years ago. Her armor is the same, but it bears signs of battle damage even if the skin on her face does not. She takes a step forward and he can hear the whirring of a prosthetic leg underneath the plating and polymer. Without saying a word she strides up to him, grabs the keel plate of his chest armor to force his head to meet hers, and kisses him squarely on the lips.

He trills in surprise and just manages to catch himself as she unceremoniously disengages from him. She smells an _awful lot_ like another turian to him.

“One thousand credits, Joker!” she shouts past the entire deck full of shocked turians.

“Fuck!” comes the response from the pilot’s seat.

“It’s good to see you too, Ash,” _spirits,_ he rights himself as she drags a glove across her mouth.

“Yeah, it is,” she replies, sounding equal parts relieved and exhausted, “We’ve got some catching up to do.”

“You’ll have to buy me dinner first,” _courtesy, woman._

“Huh… That’s not the impression I got from…” she raises her eyebrows. Garrus has no idea what she could be talking about, “never mind. And you know that’s not what I meant. I’ll see you at dinner. We haven’t spent the last several years sitting on our assess doing nothing all damn day, you know.”

_I know, believe me_ “Yeah I got your…” he lowers his voice, “I got your reports, Ash.”

She breathes a sigh of relief, “Good. I’m going to go unpack.”

Acronus and Ash are going to get along well. Both meet up with him at Third.

“Acronus,” _happy to see you,_ he nods to her as she enters the room and balks at the sight of Williams. Acronus is aware of his past with her, especially since they went through her reports and he provided details.

“This is Captain Ashley Williams,” he introduces his friend to his… “friend.”

_Honored,_ Acronus pauses for a moment to consider something before continuing, “Welcome aboard, I’m sorry I wasn’t down here when you arrived. It’s chaotic around here,” _hardly any time._

“I get it. Trust me,” Ash replies, as she takes her seat across from the two of them.

“Care to explain why you felt me up in the shuttle bay, Ash?” _explain yourself,_ he pokes at his food.

_What?_ Acronus chirps, confused, “she did what now?”

_Pardon me,_ “May I join you?” another voice breaks into the conversation and stops Ash from continuing. Garrus immediately recognizes a Taetran accent, but not the speaker. He is still adjusting to a larger crew, so he has not had a chance to meet everyone yet.

_Welcome,_ “Go ahead,” Garrus turns around and eyes the mystery turian. Acronus and Garrus both size up the newcomer instinctively. He has never seen a more Taetran θ: maroon plates, umber skin, green eyes, white markings. He is just shy of Garrus’ height and the sheen of his enamel places him near Garrus’ age. His armor is black and red, and like their own, without a manufacturing designation or rank pin. A single, striking cobalt circle sits on his pauldron, clearly covering up another marking beneath it. Garrus is quite certain that this man is not Cobalt Guard – because they wear cobalt armor – and he was not aware that they were gaining more Blackwatch agents. The scent is familiar, however.

Ash scoots over without batting and eye and allows the man to set next to her. His shoulder is _touching_ hers. This is new.

“Hey there,” she says quietly to him between bites… in _Praexus_.

_My spirit,_ “Finally got unstuck from meetings. Glad I could catch you and your friends here.”

He leans over and presses his forehead to Ash’s briefly. Acronus’ and Garrus’ jaws drop and their mandibles flare in surprise. That certainly explains the scent he picked up earlier.

“What?” Ash crams another bite into her mouth, and without switching back to English she continues, “This is Spectre Nihlus Kryik. Nai, this is-”

Garrus cannot help himself now and guffaws, _too much._ Acronus has an equally crooked looking grin on her face.

_Pardon me,_ Garrus chirps to Kryik, “Ash, when we went our separate ways you were still uncomfortable around the turians on board. What _happened?_ ”

Ash smiles and then looks down as her expression falters, her voice becoming stony. She changes back to English, “Yeah well, perspective is a bitch. You fall apart, you lose things, and then someone else has to put you back together.”

Her serious tone is sobering.

_You happy?_ “I understand. I really do. But Ash… a pet name? And as far as a mate, you literally could not have done any better.”

Kryik straightens slightly at the praise. Ash tilts her head back slightly and presses an index finger against her throat.

_I am,_ the subharmonic sounds like it belongs to her, “I’m glad I have _your_ approval, _dad,_ ” she lays on the sarcasm. Acronus and Kryik sit there quietly and allow this interaction to transpire uninterrupted.

“Anyway, this is Captain Lanaai Acronus,” _whom I greatly respect,_ Garrus decides they should proceed with their formalities before they devolve into frivolous jabs and merrymaking, “I am-”

“ _Titan,_ ” _I respect your work,_ Kryik bows his head. Acronus snorts and drops her fork to cover her mouth.

Ash grins and turns to her mate, “He doesn’t like that nickname, Nai. Don’t call him that.”

_My apologies,_ the Spectre dips his head, “Ah, I see. Vakarian it shall be.”

“Unless we’re off duty,” _brother,_ “Then it’s just ‘Garrus.’ Same for my… uh… Captain.”

Kryik nods. The rest of the meal is relatively quiet while they eat; turians generally do not prefer conversation during meals.

“Ash, do you have some time?” _we need to talk,_ Garrus asks as they bus their plates and utensils.

“I do,” she replies and turns to Kryik. She presses her finger against her throat again and trills to him, _back later._

“Acronus,” Garrus addresses the woman who is quickly becoming more than a friend to him, _let me know,_ “I’ll ping you when I’m done. We’ll go over the dossiers again and get a head-start on logistics.”

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Vakarian,” _I will see you,_ Acronus nods and leaves with Kryik.

Ash follows him to his personal workspace so they can have some privacy. Garrus decides not to razz her about her relationship yet, because a far more pressing issue is on his mind: it dawned on him during their meal that he has not seen Alenko’s name on any list, nor has he heard mention of him on board. He would have expected to encounter his former squad mate by now.

_Be honest,_ “Ash, where is Alenko?” despite expressing subharmonics, he speaks in English; has has not adjusted to the fact that Ash can speak Praexus and he might never be able to. Fiction is strange, but reality is stranger.

Her expression turns cold and grave, and he knows what she is about to say before she says it.

“You read my reports. Let me fill you in on what happened after that because,” she begins shucking off her armor, “it’s a goddamn trip.”

Once she is down to her under-armor she breathes in heavily and plops herself into one of the chairs. The reclined posture puts her prosthetic on full display, as if to prove a point.

“Horizon was our lucky break, Garrus. Recording the Collector in its entirety gave Anderson the pull he needed to haul more resources into play. _Your_ information was our lifeline… I remember I was so thrilled when Anderson gave us the assignment and his blessing to go after that fucker, I swore I’d kiss you next time I saw you. Joker put down 1000 credits.”

_Ah,_ Garrus snorts.

“So… thank you, Garrus,” she looks away for a moment and deliberates on how to continue the narrative.

“Nai joined us shortly after Anderson signed off. I was really indifferent at the time, but we all know how _that_ turned out. Then Virmire… fucking Christ…” she shakes her head angrily, “anyway, we sent ourselves through the Omega-4 with a useless IFF strapped to our craft and ran into the Collector right away. They boarded and took half our crew while my squad and I were out on a scouting run… we counter-boarded and only took half of them back…” she winces, “we discovered what those fucks were doing with all of those colonists…” she shudders and looks around as if looking for someone. _Kryik._

“Those Collectors were prototyping a reaper using biomass from the colonists they took. A tiny little squid formed from the misery of several hundred thousand innocents. _Fuck_ the Collectors!”

A biotic glow smolders on her arms for a moment before quickly disappearing.

“We annihilated their experiment and we destabilized their core to blow their shit straight to hell. My leg sure seemed to want to stay and watch the fireworks. Shrapnel is a bitch. And Alenko… he took a nasty hit and decided he would rather guarantee the success of our mission than live in the shadow of everyone else’s pity.”

“Fucking…” she looks around again anxiously and begins tapping her artificial foot against the metal floor.

_Spirits hold him,_ Garrus bows his head, but the tapping interrupts his thoughts, “What’s wrong?” _you’re so nervous._

“I need – God dammit – I need… I’m still not used to this,” Ash types frantically on her omni-tool.

Garrus sits up, concerned, identifying the start of a post-traumatic stall like the one he observed with Lanaai. Ash continues to tap her foot and become more anxious, so he leans forward and puts his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her. She quickly brushes it off as she stands up and opens the door to let Kryik enter. She pushes herself into his arms.

_I’ll give you a moment,_ Garrus stands and heads for the doorway.

_It’s fine,_ comes the reply from her mate, _she needs a second is all._

Garrus awkwardly sits back down while the θ presses his crown against Ash’s forehead, and he can feel the force of it despite standing several meters away. She calms back down. Just as soon as Kryik appeared, he leaves without saying another word. Ash picks up her account once more.

“Nai was provided to us by the Council at Anderson’s request shortly after Horizon, as leverage on our mission. He was the only turian on board and after Shepard died… I felt obligated to do right by her and change who I was. I’m sorry I was an asshole, Garrus. It didn’t catch up to me until I realized that just about everyone else on my new crew was like I was… xenophobic. Working directly in Shepard’s shadow on the _Normandy_ made it easy to let her be the liaison, so I was blind to my own prejudices.”

She sniffs and frowns, looking dejected, “I spoke with Nai… apart from Joker and Alenko, I was the only one who made an effort. I’d never been so taken with anyone, and he was just so _approachable._ Then I regretted missing the opportunity to get to know you and the turians on the _Normandy_ better. Wow, Shepard must really have gotten to me. He was there with us every step of the way; every step closer to hell. Not to discredit Alenko or any of my other crew or anything… but Nai was at my side in the field and I’d never felt more assured of success; more safe when facing off against the gnarliest bastards we’d ever encountered.”

_I understand the feeling,_ he hums. Ash pauses again and takes another slow breath.

“Being on that base fucked me up real good. I’m glad I have Nai to lean on because I… I need him. Our medic diagnosed me with PTSD basically as soon as I was carted into the medbay with my totally-destroyed leg. I let him be there for me and it felt… it’s hard to describe. I never thought I needed what he provided. Shepard always encouraged us to pursue the strength to make ourselves better and make the galaxy a better place with that strength. I found it.”

_I’m glad,_ “Shepard would have been so proud, Ash,” Garrus purrs, noticing that invoking her name no longer hurts and that her ghost is not crushing him, but rather lifting him up.

“Yeah.”

“At any point, did a reaper every try to ‘talk’ to you?” _like us?_

“You mean like what happened to you? Not really. The Collectors had this asshat that called itself the ‘General’ and it talked a lot of shit, but never like… in my mind or whatever.”

“Good,” _less trauma for you._

“Trauma? How bad is it, Garrus? You never talked about that.”

He forgot that she can understand his subharmonics now.

“I’m working on it,” _it’s hard._

“Forget I asked. I don’t want to assume, but I’m certainly not a fan of my own experience with it.”

_What about the fight?_ “Do you think we have a chance?”

“Fuck yeah!” the words are excited but the tone of her voice betrays them, “they’re not invincible, and we’re a persistent bunch. Plus we have this _deus ex machina_ with us to deal with them.”

Garrus does not want to tell her what the reaper said to them and break her confidence. After a moment of silence he decides to ask another question that has begun to eat at him: one that kept him away from pulling Lia into his arms and keeping her with him.

_Pardon me,_ “I have a person question… if you don’t mind.”

Ash nods, “Depends on the question, but go ahead.”

“How are you and Kryik…” _together._

Ash smiles and chuckles.

“Well… that’s a pretty personal question. But I… I get why you’re asking. I _get_ it. I was not oblivious to you and Shepard, you know.”

When he raises his brows and makes to protest Ash cuts him off, “yes it was that obvious. We had a pool going on when you two were going to do something about it. Although towards the end it seemed,” she pauses and frowns, “we called it off when it wasn’t funny anymore. Anyway, Nai and I were getting pretty close before we hit Omega-4 and then… uh… before we jumped I became acutely aware of several… things. I now uh… _understand…_ if you will, why some humans – like Shepard – find turians to be so… uh…” Ash heavily blushes while she flounders her way through an explanation.

“Also Nai was out of suppressants without telling anyone, and he was the _only_ turian on board, like I said. Whatever the Alliance shot me up with for advanced training gave me weak um… Nai calls it _vee’ta_ , so I was able to um… you know… _help_ him.”

Garrus recognizes what she is trying to say. β pheromones, even weakened or diluted, would allow a turian θ or φ to find relief from a rut. Shepard also produced them, and they became quite strong in the cycles leading up to her passing.

“Following our return, it was obvious that I couldn’t just let him leave, especially after he picked me up and pieced me back together. I still don’t know what he sees in me, but I’m grateful for him everyday. We lost a quarter of our crew and most of my sanity to that run. What a shitshow. When we were back in Citadel space he was able to get me a top-shelf pross. Now we’re here. I can’t really jump around like I used to, at least not for a while, so this seemed like the best way to guarantee that we are continuing to fight the reapers. Nai is here because of me, even though he could be off saving the galaxy instead of being locked up here… no offense.”

Ash hangs her head again, “And, for all the shit that I gave Lia about her mods… Christ I’m such a hypocrite. I went through with a pheromone mod, a binding mod, and a few other premiums to make our relationship healthy for him. We’re on the way. I figured it was time to let go of who I was and be who Nai needed. Because when he’s happy I’m happy. I’m still learning to deal with the regret.”

_You’re a better person,_ “Lia was always looking out for us. She would have wanted you seek out strength and happiness even if she… she couldn’t.”

“Yeah…” Ash sighs and slips back into silence, _good talk,_ “We’re going to kick some ass, Garrus, even if we have to do it from the back seat. Thanks for dealing with my problems for a while.”

_Likewise,_ “you have my ear if you need it.”

As soon as Ash takes off down the hall he pings Acronus. He needs to unwind after Ash brought a number of demons out of the confines of his mind, and he will start to dwell unless he has Lanaai. He finishes up his rounds and his progress reports and transitions into his off-hours, seeking out Lanaai right away. But, before he has her for a rut, he needs to talk to her about Ash’s incredible victory over a powerful foe, and what it means for their fight.

He finds her working, as usual, and takes a seat in one of the chairs in her personal workspace to wait while she wraps up.

_How was it?_ “You caught up?” she asks without looking up.

_Not really,_ “There’s a lot we’ve missed, but I enjoyed speaking with her. Apart from Joker, Ash feels like an ‘old friend’ despite the fact that she was quite cold with me most of the time. Obviously her experiences have shaped her quite a bit,” _an understatement._

_An understatement?_ Acronus puts down her datapad and rises from her chair, stretching her limbs and re-seating her plates.

“Yeah…” _long story, hers,_ “I’m glad she’s back. With you and her running this op, everything should go smoothly around here.”

Acronus whistles, _quite a compliment,_ “That’s high praise coming from you. I’m glad that you have confidence in us and also that you’ll get along just fine with our addition.”

His plans to go over Ash’s accounts swiftly leave his mind when he notices Lanaai’s scent: stressed. Ash should probably be the one to tell her, anyway.

Garrus follows her from her workspace and heads to her nest with her, silently conveying intent. Her hips begin to sway a little more as she nears the door to her sleeping pod, and she glances back with her mandibles flared once she comes to a stop. Her flirting is insufferable, but it feels wonderful to have someone gaze upon him with desire for more than just his body. He ducks into the pod with her and they both begin deconstructing their armor. Once they have stowed away the shells into the compartments in the walls and thrown their compression suits to the ledge surrounding the padding, they move towards each other.

Turians do not like to play games before coupling, finding the delay to be unsatisfying and wasteful, but he and Lanaai are no longer what he would consider to be acquaintances or even friends. Her company means more to him than relief at this point, so he takes care to ensure that she is ready for him. As far as he can tell, Lanaai enjoys it very much.

He does not roughhouse with her when they are this close to the sleep cycle; he does not flip her onto her chest and vigorously penetrate her to reach satiation as quickly as possible. They fight for dominance if they follow a spar with a rut, but right now such behavior is inappropriate.

He purrs and presses his muzzle into her neck, nipping lightly, before allowing the rest of his chest to press into hers. He knows it makes her feel safe when he presses her into the nest like this, so he surrounds her with himself. Most would find this constricting, including himself, but she is different and the pressure seems to be a reassurance of reality. She begins to relax as he shifts from her neck to her waist, nipping with his teeth and kneading with his fingers. She digs the pads of her fingers into his scalp and returns the favor, and his purring grows louder with her soft vocalizations of pleasure.

Her aroma is powerful. He ghosts a finger down the un-plated expanse of her abdomen to its apex, where the plates of her waist cowling and her guardplates meet. Her guardplates quiver as he swipes his tongue across the gap once and then pulls himself back up her body so he can align his hips with hers. He can smell her sheath open before he feels it. The sweetness of the scent indicates the presence of pheromones only present during truly intimate exchanges. It will not be much longer until they are inseparable, and he is perfectly okay with that, but they still need to wait until they end the war before diving in. Binding might make them weak when they are apart, but it will make them so much stronger together; they both need that strength after what they have suffered through.

He enters her slowly so that she stays relaxed, and savors the journey through the incredible warmth and tightness of her sheath to its limit, where he stops and waits for her to fully adjust. Her tail curls around his and constricts, keeping him stationary. Her back arches and her subharmonics sing when he flares his platelets and strokes all of her at once. Her legs spread apart so they can circle his waist. Before he lifts his hips and starts thrusting, he allows the image of her to flow into him: crystal blue eyes, a crooked grin flaring her mandibles, neck flushed and evocatively exposed, content, relaxed. Simply beautiful.

She moans with his first thrust. She is a vocal one, but more so now than she was before their implicit relationship deepened into what it is at the moment. Garrus has always been relatively quiet during ruts, barely letting sound leave his throat except for growls and purrs, but Lanaai is quite the opposite. She lets him _know_ when she approves of his handling of her. It certainly took some getting used to, but now he _loves_ hearing her sing for him.

He begins by lifting her hips and slamming himself into her with deliberate motions. He stops at the end of each thrust to grind his slit against hers and feel smoothness there. Electricity practically jumps between their skin and amplifies the feeling. He holds her at arms’ length and delays their satiation by keeping contact relatively minimal. Once she begins to grip him tightly-enough that he has to slow, he hooks an arm under her knee and pushes her leg up to her shoulder. She clenches her teeth, squeezes her eyes shut, and keens. He returns to the pace he set before and she turns slightly to allow him to delve deeper. She cries out when he folds the other leg to match, and his tail slips past her _cilix_ for an instant.

As they progress towards completion he finds himself pressing as much of himself against her as he can. He no longer bothers to move his hips, electing instead to withdraw and extend his tail slowly. She buries her muzzle into his neck and wraps her arms around his back, keeping him locked tightly to her. The tips of this mandibles fit between her slender fringes and flutter against them. Her subharmonics are small and light now, and she coos gently while he keeps her from moving by encircling her.

_You staying tonight?_ comes the timid-sounding question from her once he slows to a stop, spoken into his skin rather than the air.

_If you’re offering,_ he replies, moving a hand to scratch the sensitive plates on the back of her head.

_Always,_ comes the reply, almost instantly. He rumbles happily and pulls himself free from her so he can adjust their bodies into a more comfortable sleeping arrangement.


	35. Chapter 35

“How are you holding up, Garrus?” Ash asks as she finishes her rounds and stops by his station.

“Could be worse,” _between war crimes and nightmares,_ he replies.

“I get it,” she replies somberly, “have you… ever gone to see someone about that?”

“About what?” _take your pick._

“Your… trauma.”

“Yes,” _several times,_ “after the first raids I started talking to people, reluctantly of course. But it wasn’t getting any better.”

“What is it like?”

“What is _what_ like?” _the trauma or the talking?_

“Both,” she responds to his subharmonics.

_A few words of advice,_ “well…” _privacy first,_ “do you want to move this conversation to somewhere else?”

“I’ll take you up on that,” she stands again and they follow the halls to his private workspace.

“What are you really asking about?” _be honest with me,_ he asks once the door shuts behind them.

“I am… wait I thought I asked _you_ a question.”

Garrus says nothing in reply and waits for her to continue.

“Fine,” she huffs, “I talked to a shrink and-”

“Alright, Ash,” _stop,_ he cuts in and shakes his head, “ _please_ don’t call the individuals who have poured their lives into helping others recover from invisible pain _‘shrink.’_ ”

“Oh. Sorry. That’s always what we called them,” she looks shocked that he has such a strong opinion about this. He imagines this is the product of the difference in cultures, but even on Bridge it was frowned up on to use colloquialisms to abbreviate formal titles. Turians find it incredibly disrespectful.

“Anyway, please continue,” _sorry I interrupted._

“I had a few sessions with a psychiatrist and it had basically no effect. Then I had to transfer and I never went back. I thought it wasn’t working. I thought it was a waste of time. I was able to hide it from Nai for a while. I’d stay awake all night to make sure I didn’t wake him with my goddamn nightmares.”

_A mistake,_ he frowns, “he won’t be happy when he finds out.”

Ash barks a laugh, “he already did. He wasn’t. It wasn’t funny,” the smile drops off her face, “ _never_ going to make that mistake again. So I talked to more shr- psychiatrists and I still… I still have these… moments. So I want to know how you deal with what you’ve seen. I know you’ve seen some shit.”

_That depends,_ “Well, for me it slowly got worse… sort of. It sounds like you had everything dumped on you all at once. You never went into detail regarding your Collector ship run, but I assume it is much worse than you let on.”

“Y-yeah, that’s probably true.”

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” _I know there is,_ he leans forward.

“Well, I don’t want to go back there, and I don’t want to show you either… to spare you.”

“It cannot possibly be worse than what the Obelisk showed me,” _several eons of torture._

“Fuck. I forgot about that. I’ll send you our footage and you can watch it at your discretion.”

“To continue to answer your original question,” _about trauma,_ “it never really gets ‘better,’ if you will. I just learned to live with it. It is part of my identity but I don’t have to let it limit me anymore. And more recently… never mind,” _not yet._

“More recently what, Garrus?” she raises her brows.

“I found someone to help me bear the burden,” _like you did._

“Really?” Ash seems shocked. Perhaps she thought that was still tethered to Lia.

“Is that so hard to believe?” _I didn’t believe it at first._

“Well… knowing you and having known Shepard… _yes_ actually. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to set the bar as high as Shepard did. Or for anyone to ever reach yours.”

Garrus snorts, _come now,_ “It’s certainly quite possible. Anyway, Kryik will be your crutch until you eventually learn to let the trauma become part of who you are, and then take control back.”

“How long, Garrus, until that happens?”

“I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but just know that it will happen at some point. I’m not totally over mine,” _it still wakes me._

“I see. Wow, every time I talk to you now, I regret not talking to you on the _Normandy._ Dammit.”

_Regret is petty,_ “chin up, Ash, regret won’t get you anywhere. I’ve learned enough about that to tell you now.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she rises again, sends over the footage from their Omega-4 run, and then bids him a soft, perfectly-pronounced “goodbye” _spirits guide you,_ in _Praexus._

Garrus watches the footage and realizes just how much Ash is holding down. Kryik’s work as a Spectre must have normalized most of this, otherwise both he _and_ Ash would be broken. Garrus’ nightmares provide visions of this, but time has given him a bit of a shell against it. Not to mention that he was put into a coma. He does not know how to tell her that there is no therapy that can truly help her, but he stands by his words. He would never lie about his own experiences. A guide can build strength, but they cannot speak the body and mind into a stronger state than it was. The individual is largely responsible for investing in their own repair, and the barrier is not knowing how to begin.

They plug away for the next several sections on the sphere station… _Apophis_ … almost to a point where they can power up subsystems and bring controls online. Major strides in the engineering process have sped things along, and with every passing week he feels better about their chances of stopping this invasion almost as soon as it happens. The may avoid a war altogether.

Ash and Kryik work very well with Acronus and himself, making managing the humans and turians on board a rather simple task. They can focus on making progress rather than settling petty disputes between species. Ash made it abundantly clear that she chose the majority of the individuals for the _Indictor_ herself, citing a total lack of tolerance for intolerance after falling in love with Kryik.

Kryik is a character, and like Garrus’ own team, he is anxious about being “trapped” here. Kryik is a Spectre; he has a certain wanderlust and desire for solitude that most turians have beaten out of them during academy. Given the opportunity, he would grab his mate so the two of them could gallivant into the void and face the enemy themselves.

His presence on board gives Ash incredible confidence, and Ash’s leadership is imperative as she wields the same command that Shepard did. She can quiet a room just by walking in and waiting. Everyone on board takes her judgment for granted in the same way they do for Acronus. Kryik understands this, but it will never change _who_ he is. Garrus did not realize how right Ash was when she said that Kryik is here for her. Either way, Garrus finds Kryik’s dedication admirable, and he faces both guilt and envy that Kryik and Ash have exactly what he wanted with Lia.

Solus, Sidonis, and T’soni complete the prototype for a device that can supposedly detect indoctrinated individuals, and he is the first unknowing test subject.

“Should I be relieved?” _I am,_ Garrus sighs.

“Might not be working,” Solus taps his chin.

“Or he’s not indoctrinated,” _better not be,_ Sidonis replies.

“We’d need to find someone who is definitely indoctrinated to know for sure of our results are accurate,” T’soni frowns, “the design is sound but…”

“Need husks,” Solus says matter-of-factly.

“No,” _we’re not doing that,_ Garrus growls.

“Commander,” _send us out, please_ “this is important.”

“No,” _again,_ he repeats himself, “we’re not risking lives for this experiment.”

“Garrus,” Sidonis lowers his voice, “send us out. We can handle this. It’ll be good for our team to get our hands dirty,” _please._

“I’ll think about it,” _I will, trust me,_ he finally concedes. He does not want to send his team on a hunt without going with them or leaving Acronus behind. He _does_ thirst for some violence, however. He has to speak with Acronus and Ash about this before he just lets his team go into the field. Acronus is easy to find; he is quickly developing an instinct that makes locating her incredibly easy.

“Hey Lanaai,” _happy to see you,_ he greets her as he approaches her in the hangar bay where she is working on one of their shuttles. She does this to unwind between writing reports and managing thousands of people.

“Garrus,” _likewise,_ she chirps and looks up.

“The dynamic trio has finished their indoctrination detector device,” _there’s more,_ he starts.

_Ah yes,_ “I heard about that. Sidonis has asked for all sorts of weird parts lately.”

“They need to test it though,” _there’s the problem._

She wears confusion for a moment before frowning, _I’m concerned,_ “So… what? Do they want to go out and get test subjects? Husks?”

_Yes,_ “Yes, actually. Sidonis asked to organize a squad to hunt down subjects.”

_No,_ “Yeah… no,” she snorts.

“That’s what I said,” _at first,_ he buzzes.

_At first?_ she trills, “Did you authorize something that you’re going to regret?” _That I will regret?_

_Not yet,_ “I’m not _that_ rash, Lanaai.”

_Do you want to?_ “I don’t know, Garrus. You’re the one that charged a fully-armed Krogan with impossible regen mods.”

_Not rash,_ “Come on, I calculated the risk… and let’s get back on topic here.”

_Change your mind?_ she begins to ask but he continues before she can open her mouth, “I think we should organize a strike team and send them out. I know my squad is incredibly antsy here; while I don’t like the idea of separating our team, they need it.”

Lanaai sighs, _you’re right,_ “Yeah. I agree. Their skills are not being utilized right now and I feel pretty bad about that. I’ll come talk to you about options once we finish our shifts.”

_I’m looking forward to it,_ he bows his head and purrs.

_So am I,_ she rumbles in reply.

They begin to work on the logistics of organizing a crew and a craft. Their mission: hunt down husks so their indoctrination detector can obtain a base reading which can be used for calibration. Garrus thinks they might also be able to ask Legion to capture them some heretical geth – indoctrination applies to sapient creatures and the heretical geth have already proven themselves to be sapient by falling to the reapers. His squad, T’soni, and Solus will form the central team. He needs to start asking around the crew to volunteer for role reassignments so they have essential staff for a _Nocveus_ -sized craft.

Their planning matters little. After falling asleep with his lover again, Garrus is awoken in the middle of the night by Acronus’ omni-tool blaring from its tinny speakers. She wakes up quickly, wrenching herself from his embrace on instinct. Their combined surprise ejects their bodies away from each other as their plates solidify abruptly. He curses under his breath as she reads the emergency update and he reads through his latest messages.

“Shit!” _fuck!_ she curses again and scrambles into her undersuit. He helps her adorn her armor as she clearly has somewhere she needs to be right now. He has a feeling he knows what the message says, but will wait to hear back from her. She punches in the omni-id of the director of the Alliance engineering effort.

“Jans get your team up now! Yes now! Move the entire thing to coordinates β. Right now! I am not fucking with you; _Right. Now!_ ” _do it!_ she barks into her omni-tool. She casts him a terrified glance,

_They’ve arrived,_ her subharmonics jitter.

His mandibles droop.

_I will see you later,_ she chirps as she clamors out of the pod. He wanted to believe that they had more time, but with an order like that… it seems the invasion has begun. Messages pour into his inbox and confirm his fears.

It is surreal, and he will be powerless to rescue his brethren from sublimation.

The comm lines light up and his day becomes chaotic as they mobilize the entire grand fleet and her sisters. Palaven is as ready as she will ever be, but he knows that it will not be enough. They have maybe five cycles before the reapers arrive at every major populated planet and begin to turn their surfaces to glass.

Both Legion and Zorah send him requests for more information which he gladly shares, but little movement from their side means they are not prepared either. He closes his eyes and relives the nightmares from the obelisk. The reaper’s words replay in his mind:

  
Keep in mind that most of us do not want this, and hold back as much as possible. Some have the capacity to avoid it altogether – like myself – and some will even defect and help you though you may be unable to tell… but ultimately we do not have any choice. Whether we like it or not, we must eradicate you for the same reason you must eradicate us.  


Five cycles later Palaven reports casualties in the thousands, then in the tens of thousands just _two hours_ following. After two more cycles they are nearing a hundred thousand. Earth is in much worse condition. Garrus has witnessed all manner of war crimes and debauched acts in his tours under Special Forces and Blackwatch, but this complete and utter blindness to the very real deaths occurring right now make him physically sick. He should _be there_ defending his fellow turians rather than sitting up here all safe and free from harm.

He cannot sleep during his resting hours and wakes up more exhausted than the previous cycle, unable to do much. Lanaai eventually orders him to her nest and holds him there, purring until he finally drops off, keeping his nightmares temporarily at bay. She is still with him when he wakes up and he is immeasurably grateful, even if she looks shaken and anxious. He conducts operations and communications from the confines of her quarters where her pleasing scent keeps him relaxed. He feels guilty that he is receiving special treatment like this, but having the ability _focus_ is a powerful card. He always plays the most powerful card.

Reports are grim. The asari and salarians are being torn to shreds. Several of T’soni’s agents inside Batarian and Krogan population centers are not responding. Legion and Zorah have not replied to his messages. The Palaven and Earth defense fleets are unable to fully keep the reapers at bay, and other major colonies have it even worse. Taetrus is burning, and along with her are the families of Focos, Nissus, and Kryik. Several of their turian crew also have family there, all of whom are now burned into ashen silhouettes underneath the rubble of their former homesteads.

He cannot console everyone. He cannot save everyone. He knows that his duty to the galaxy is to guarantee that this weapon is deployed and activated, but it hurts no less to walk around his ship and smell the sour stench of despair and depression. T’soni takes the news of Thessia very poorly and breaks down as soon as he steps into her private quarters to check on her. He holds her while she buries her face into his neck and sobs. She has every right to feel betrayed by her people for not listening to their warnings.

_Take the time you need,_ “Are you going to be okay, T’soni?” he asks when she removes herself from him.

“I thought, in my naïveté, that Thessia would somehow be spared. Even though you prophesized so clearly that this exact tragedy would occur. I hoped that maybe it would not be as terrible as you asserted. I have never felt so betrayed by my brothers and sisters for not listening to you,” she wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

_I cannot offer much,_ he rumbles, but does not speak.

“Thank you for listening, Garrus,” she casts her gaze downward, “I’m going to get back to work.”

Without saying anything more, he nods and leaves her quarters. By the following cycle she is back to work, feeling the desire for vengeance overtake the grief.

The council starts with anger first, as if that will suddenly cause the human and turian systems to conjure up extra resources out of thin air. He has to explain to the councilors, again, that they have nothing left over – they prepared to defend themselves for this conflict having heeded Shepard’s and his own warnings. Then they start pleading… but they do not seem to grasp the concept that the human and turian fleets have _nothing left over._

Thessia burns. Sur’kesh burns. Their colonies and cities are all scorched and mottled with craters. They are barely a section into this invasion and already the death toll is estimated in the hundreds of millions. The reapers are efficient, remorseless killing machines, and their purpose in existing is to destroy everything. Knowing why does neither makes it right, nor does it grant them any tactical or strategic advantage. Whether or not _Acheron_ was lying about the reapers that defect remains to be seen, and if it was telling the truth, then how much worse could it possibly be?

The Citadel is more of a mess than it already was. The conflict between species is greatly exacerbated when the lack of action on the part of the salarians and asari becomes public knowledge. People are having trouble leaving to seek safety elsewhere, both because no one wants to invite conflict onto their transportation craft, and because nowhere else is safe. Garrus receives reports from Command that Arterius has been spotted several times on the citadel by their agents. At that point it becomes abundantly clear that the Citadel is exactly as T’soni feared: a honeypot to draw in the galaxy’s sapients so the reapers can make short work of them.

When the news finally goes out that the quarians have a geth fleet working with them, no one has time to care. Zorah and Legion begin to send him regular updates to his relief. Legion’s updates are unusually optimistic, like he has made a breakthrough and their chances in the quarian-geth conflict may slightly improve. The geth fleet arrives a couple days later to the chagrin of Ash, who immediately feels uneasy with the presence of geth among their ranks. They need the help, however, and most of the geth ships that arrive are not even weaponized; they are mobile assembly lines for the express purpose of picking up slack.

Zorah reports in about that time and says she has had some “luck” getting through to the quarian admiralty board. It is _really easy_ to believe her story about the reapers… now that several periods of Armageddon have elapsed.

_Apophis_ is nowhere near ready. They may need several more sections that they no longer have. Even with the additional manufacturing power from a geth fleet they may barely make it, if at all.

* * *

Acronus is quite shocked by the speed at which the Alliance and Hierarchy scientists accomplish the move of the sphere station. She thought that it was going to take months to get the thing moving but it takes just under one. Her best efforts to prevent foul pay and subversion seem to be working for now but she assumes that separatists and splinter cells do know about this operation.

Still, they have the sphere station – colloquially named _Apophis_ now – within the locus of Bridge for construction work, with a portion of the Bridge Defense Fleet on their way. For once, Garrus takes initiative and propositions her for a rut to which she readily agrees. She cannot find relief from anyone else at the moment and access to suppressants is quickly running out. She knows why this happening, but she prefers to remain squarely in her pit of denial, attempting to avoid another source of worry. She _wants_ it but they need to keep themselves focused.

The news of their imminent transfer to another starship bothers her more than it should because she always becomes attached to her ships. Transferring requires her to adapt to a new location and a new set of parameters that potentially degrade her performance and the performance of her crew. The first thing she can think to do is go talk to Garrus because he calms her down just by standing nearby and listening to her complain.

Acronus and Garrus pour over what they can about their new ship, the _Indictor._ She is a stunning craft but she is bulky, and Nissus will not be pleased to be flying around a _barge_. Despite her size, she is comparatively nimble. She is to serve as a proper weapon as well as a command platform for the Hierarchy and Alliance participants in this war. To Acronus, this seems like a full admission from the Hierarchy.

And yet, the Alliance has still made no official recognition of the reaper threat beyond stating that they “agree that the turian concerns for the increased colony abductions require swift action.” Acronus does not like working with humans… Lia Shepard did not like working with humans. She supposes that Alliance command would choose carefully, and that she should have more faith in her former superiors to screen her future crewmates for adequacy, but in general she finds the Alliance’s methods inadequate for dealing with problems on this scale.

The dossiers for the turian roll in very late in their transfer process, which irritates her further. They receive the Alliance dossiers on the day they are schedule to arrive, which does not give her enough time to organize them and pass them out to her XO and Garrus.

Acronus has some mixed feelings about working with her old crew again. She struggled with reminders of her past life, and she does not want to pile on more. At the very least some of her turian crew are happy to discover that they will be working with nearly the same human crew as before. It should keep everything running relatively smoothly.

She finds it challenging to contain her excitement when she spots Ashley Williams’ name on her list. _They made it._ She wants to tell her friend how proud of her she is, but she has to keep to herself. Garrus should be able to live through that experience on her behalf, however.

_Captain Williams_ … it certainly does have a ring to it. She wants all the details of their trip through the Omega-4, but she will have to allow Garrus to act as her proxy in the meantime. It will certainly be amusing to have two captains aboard. There are quite a few “missing” names, however. She does not see Alenko’s name on the list…

Acronus is not actually on the bridge when the human crew start to board, but she can tell when it happens because the commotion seems to ripple throughout the entire ship. She needs more time to finish writing up a cluster of reports and then respond to Legion’s periodic updates, but she has an obligation to welcome these newcomers aboard her ship, including her old friends. She puts down her datapad and heads to the CIC to lie some more about who and what she is.

They all seem a bit off to her, including Joker who lacks the same energy he exuded aboard their previous craft. Williams appears to be a totally different woman altogether. She wants to know what they experienced that eliminated most of the hope they maintained aboard the _Nocveus_.

Acronus has to force herself to speak through the translator to Williams, after nearly blurting out a sentence in English. Acronus does not know how to speak English, and while she could probably make up an explanation, she wants to avoid the suspicion. Williams shocks the plates off herself and Garrus by putting her very close relationship with a turian on public display. Acronus cannot fathom such a thing after knowing Williams for so long, and even during their tour on the _Nocveus,_ she remained very cold to their turian crewmates. She understands, however, that people are malleable and that given enough time, they can change. Williams certainly seems to be quite content with her mate.

Acronus allows Williams and Garrus to have some privacy so they can catch up while she speaks with Spectre Kryik briefly about his history with her. She has to know, but she cannot pry without drawing suspicion.

_Pardon me,_ “Kryik, forgive me for asking, but how did your relationship with Williams come about?” _a rare, good thing._

If he was apprehensive about her question, then her tone must reassure him that he is not going to be judged harshly for answering it, because he relaxes.

_Disdain abound,_ “Not used to speaking with another turian of your… uh…” _pardon me,_ “my former colleagues and ‘friends’ were not terribly pleased with my choice of mate. I have begun to project their negativity onto my view of my brethren, much to my own detriment.”

“Yeah well,” _not from me,_ “I got away from my home to escape that attitude.”

“ _Ashe_ is unlike any other,” he inflects her name in an odd way. She can tell that he has learned to pronounce the shortened version of “Ashley” as she would pronounce it in English – or make the closest possible approximation. His accent is cute, and she finds it incredibly endearing. She is sure Williams adores him for this little thing, along with everything else about him. Garrus was certainly quite correct in his observation that Williams could not have found anyone better than Kryik.

He continues without allowing her thoughts to keep up, “I was posted to her command rather forcefully. The council made it abundantly clear that I had no say in the matter, so I was a bit distraught at first. An all-human crew with one turian aboard seemed like a bad idea – it _was_ a bad idea – but the premise of their mission was so enticing. I’d heard of this nightmare unfolding from my… shall I say… ‘acquaintances’ at Command, so I placed my faith in doing what was right by the rest of the galaxy. Plus I knew that Saren was involved at some point, and he… I just had to have chance to take him down,” _traitor._

_Admirable,_ Acronus rumbles as they reach her private work space and begin to arrange themselves to continue the conversation. Kryik just revealed a very a personal history with the monster, but he keeps well away from mentioning it any further.

“ _Ashe_ was quite vocal in her attempts to welcome me aboard. From what I’d learned of her past with the venerable Commander Shepard,” _Spirits hold her,_ “it seemed to make sense that she was carrying a spirit with her.”

_Definitely,_ Acronus agrees, feeling more pride for her former protégé swell in her chest.

“Working with her turned out to be quite pleasant. She treated me with genuine respect; having the _Spectre_ title gives me a certain ‘allure’ which usually sours any authenticity. I am either a spirit of death to be feared, or a tail with a body at one end of it to be ravished. _Ashe_ didn’t seem to care, and I think that drew me in. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be viewed for my character than my title; to be _turian._ From there we drew close. I am no stranger to humanity as a consequence of my line of work. _Ashe_ was quite aware of our social conventions for someone who seemed so ‘human-centric’ at first. She is honest, strong of mind and body, a warrior and poet. She spoke to me, she listened to me, she gave me a life back that I lost. It made the bond we have now inevitable.”

Acronus is smiling now.

_Pardon me,_ Kryik nods his head, “do you two happen to be close?”

Acronus freezes and concocts an appropriate response, _not that I am aware,_ “I am delighted by the triumph of an unlikely union, even for people I have never met. I am fighting for individuals who desire to bring happiness and strength to others regardless of the boundaries between them. We aren’t going to win a war by standing in our comfort zones, alone.”

_Well said,_ he chirps, “Of course. That is my experience as well and I-” his omni-tool buzzes and he looks down sharply, suddenly growing concerned.

_Please excuse me, emergency now,_ “Thank you for your time, Captain Acronus, I am grateful. I have to attend to something immediately. Let me know if you need my council later.”

_What’s wrong?_ “Oh. Is there something-”

_Please,_ “excuse me, Captain,” he bows and exits the room abruptly. She wonders what that could possibly be about. She assumes Garrus is still speaking with Williams so she returns to her rounds and eventually makes her way back to her workspace to continue reading through the endless supply of messages in her inboxes.

If her crew expected to fight and shoot things, they must all be sorely disappointed. All is quiet. Six sections – and in each section they win these little battles with the technology behind _Apophis._ Her mind is a machine and now that the pieces are aligning, and she can see more detail than ever before. Her work is more focused on actual engineering than commanding fleet maneuvers. The technical staff seems to pick up on the idea that she knows what she is talking about allow her to become heavily involved in the process.

In her off hours she spends more time with Garrus than usual (for the wrong reasons) because he has the remainder of the information they need to get this weapon up and running when the time comes. In other cases, her time will simply vanish in his company. She greatly prefers the latter to the former. He often nests with her as well, and the relief is welcome. She likes where they seem to be heading, but does not feel rushed or obligated to pin him down. She never smells another female on him.

Sometimes she has to hold him down in order to get him to sleep and rest. Garrus has already developed a mild case of observer’s guilt and it eats at him everyday. Coupled with the unfathomable trauma that lingers from the Obelisk, he is never truly rested. Another instance of a panic attack occurs in the middle of his sleep cycle, and what she thought might have been a bad dream becomes a reality. She wakes up abruptly when he almost throws her across the pod and backs into a corner.

She is not afraid of him, though. She crawls back to him and pushes past his arms, which make a very weak attempt to keep her away. She remembers how desperate she was the last time this happened, but now she keeps calm. She cannot fix him – no one can fix him – but she can give him the strength to face this. She will have to speak with him about this if it happens again, however, because she absolutely needs to know that he is making an effort to get real help.

Lanaai pulls her Garrus back into the nest and he allows her. They are much closer now than they were before, and his body responds positively to hers. She cannot rut him into submission like this because he is not lucid, but she can offer her warmth. Lanaai does not beg like she did last time because it will just stress him out again. She purrs instead, and hopes that he can feel it in there.

Only an hour later her omni-tool wakes them both. The message on the holo-screen is too surreal: “Red Ten” from command. The reapers have been spotted – thousands of them – by their deep space sensor arrays. She curses.

The invasion is beginning. Right now the invasion is beginning. Her plates go numb and she feels herself begin to gasp for air and look around for handholds as a sensation of weightlessness takes hold of her. Luckily Garrus is next to her, ironically well-rested and oblivious to his own episode, to help steady her and get her suited up.

_They are still not ready._

How many good people are about to be consumed by the genocide before receiving any kind of warning or chance to escape? She barks some commands at the lead engineer with the Alliance team that operates the massive thruster array attached to the sphere station. Luckily for all of them, Garrus had the foresight to employ a system of backup shipyards for this exact purpose. She wants to worship him for it, because it might make all the difference in the galaxy, but she has to jump into a tactical briefing.

Acronus spends her day frantically writing up reports and drawing together plans and running all over the ship. Williams confronts her several times for briefing and coordination but generally she operates her own forces independently. Garrus confides in her at the end of the cycle.

“We knew this would happen and yet… I feel sick anyway,” _I can’t believe we aren’t out there._

“I understand,” _too well, it hurts,_ she replies, “me too. I cannot lie to you, we aren’t ready, Garrus,” _but we are making a difference here._

“I know we aren’t ready, Lanaai, but usually if I’m not ready for something I can feel my way through it and figure something out. This is… I feel like…” _when she died, so hopeless…_

_I know your pain,_ “What? If it’s too personal then don’t say it. No need to make yourself uncomfortable.”

_Empty, cold, hopeless,_ “When she… Lia… in her last moments… I feel the same now as I did then. It isn’t the same as going up against impossible odds, because at least I have some say. It’s complete and utter hopelessness.”

She says nothing, allowing the echoes of his voice to ring out.

_We know strength and we know loss,_ “We’ve made so much progress, Garrus. We’ll see this through.”

Doting on Garrus in her off hours is the most relaxing part of her schedule and it keeps her focused and sane during her work hours. He has an obsessive personality and without her presence to back him down, he would implode. His lack of sleep becomes obvious and she knows that he will try to solve the problem by doing as much work as possible until he… until he dies. It is in his nature to remain constantly preoccupied with a problem until it is resolved, ignoring all personal repercussions, so she takes the initiative for him and drags him to nest with her, but not to rut.

She showers him with the same love and warmth that she has always kept aglow inside her. That first night she curls into him takes her back. She can see the stars and the starships, smell the desert air, feel his unwavering presence. The respite is a minor victory amid the ongoing tragedies they face on a daily basis now. She allows herself to be temporarily washed clean of her negativity. There is always a fear that a nightmare will grip him, but she accepts it as part of being his. He does not experience a recurrence of trauma.

Acronus starts receiving reports of carnage on the ground as colonies start to fall. In some cases she stops receiving reports altogether; knowing exactly what that means is painful every time. Earth’s tentative blanket of assault craft tears apart more and more with each passing day. Palaven is not too far behind even with her massive fleet. They have not been able to stop every reaper from taking to the ground, so Cipritine is already in flames. The asari and salarians are facing true devastation as they barely prepared despite “supporting the cause.”

Reports are detailed and gruesome. The reapers will murder half of a colony and then absorb the others using indoctrination so powerful that they lose all resemblance to their previous selves. The heretic geth and the collectors appear in their ground forces to mop up bodies and convert innocents into monstrosities. She cannot imagine what it would feel like to see her mother, father, or Garrus’ family members turned into husks. Would she even be able to pull the trigger on them if necessary? Bridge has yet to be attacked. It provides her with minuscule solace, but the wave cannot be stopped. She does not dare to bring back the idea of sending Garrus’ team down there with the prototype detector; they would be overwhelmed.

At one point Acronus thought she would feel some kind of satisfaction once the asari and salarians faced their own ignorance, but it never comes. She is berated and pestered constantly for assistance where she can offer none. They managed to cobble together all they could with their allies for this war. There is nothing left. There will be nothing left.

The salarians offer scientists and medical specialists who she accepts, but that will not provide additional defense to Sur’kesh. Garrus immediately orders them to deploy to Palaven and Earth to help pick up slack. The asari say nothing, as if they have something to hide despite standing well inside the blast radius of this conflict. The asari fleet is powerful but it is not nearly large-enough to handle the assault. Military coordination between asari fleets is lackluster.

Garrus coordinates the arrival and logistics of the geth manufacturing force they now possess. Williams is understandably bothered by it but she backs down when Garrus takes control. Williams clearly remembers that Garrus always had exquisite judgment and trusts that he knows what he is doing. Good.

Kryik keeps them informed where Command cannot, as his network of contacts reaches much farther than Command’s. He is not an information broker like T’soni, but every last scrap of strength they can muster helps. The Spectre is anxious here, but he refuses to leave Williams. Acronus wishes she could move their fleet to a more active war zone where they could make use of their weaponry and their motivation.

Zorah reports that the quarians have managed to convert and amass a fleet of empty Liveships for evacuation purposes, all of which are ready for deployment. Acronus is grateful. Zorah is clearly trying as hard as she can to strong-arm her people into cooperating with this war effort. The more they cooperate with their fellow sapient lifeforms, the better their chances to overcome the reapers.

Ultimately, all of these developments are unspectacular. While she deeply appreciates the efforts and the strength from her peers and allies, it does not appear to be making any difference. She is confined to his prison of a ship to feel guilty while she oversees a project which may or may not work. Perhaps the turian instinct is calling her to violence where she would have previously remained complacent. She knows that her crew feel the same way, but they have a role and she can already feel the inevitability of a disaster.

Now that she has perspective, she deeply considers reassigning Focos, Quo’an, and Lo’kian to another commander and moving them into active combat roles so they can put their skills to use. This is what they wanted. She is afraid to bring up the suggestion to Garrus, even though she knows he would humor her; he was the one who originally brought this up. However, without a doubt, sending them into battle would be sending them to their deaths.

When she began her tour under the Alliance Special Forces and then later once she began her tour under the Hierarchy, she discreetly monitored Bridge colony just keep herself current. It brought her peace of mind to know how the flourishing city fared. She also knows that her mother is down there somewhere, lonely perhaps, but alive nonetheless and working away to make the galaxy a better place for everyone.

That illusion of safety vanishes in an instant when the allied defense fleet returns images of the carnage on Bridge from orbit. Nightmare fuel from helmet cams on the ground do not help either. With Bridge and Kodara both ruined, all of her homes are gone. In a moment, the war that has been outside of her realm has made a smoking shell of her carapace. She goes to Garrus – he is the only home she has now.

Acronus tries not to mope about it; they all knew that this was inevitable but she still hoped that somehow Bridge would be spared. There is no way her mother made it out of there alive. She needs to stay strong for her crewmates, all of whom have lost someone important to them by now. As much as she wants to lean into Garrus for support (more so than she already has), she does not want to weigh him down with more stress. She has no idea if his family made it out either, and she refuses to bring it up to him out of respect for his privacy.

The faintest glimmer of hope comes from Zorah’s updates. In the midst of the war she has jumped straight to Admiral of the Fleet and now has proper authority. That must be some kind of reparation for treating her family like garbage for their involvement with the geth, and for scorning her evidence of the reaper invasion. It may be too little too late, but Zorah has good intentions and a sound mind. Quarian and geth exodus craft are providing asylum for several million individuals in total – hardly a drop on the ocean of fatalities, but it means a lot to her and to those who have been saved. Legion still plans to breach back into the Rannoch geth servers and negotiate the end of the Morning War.

* * *

Late that section, as things continue to look grim and the numbers climb, Acronus seeks him out and just drops into his arms without forewarning. She keens as their armor protests with a metallic squeal.

“It’s gone, Garrus,” _home,_ her eyes stare through him into the void, “they took Bridge. They burned it.”

His mandibles drop along with the rest of his world. His family may be completely dead. He does not know what her connection to Bridge may be, especially because she said she was from an obscure industrial colony – Kodara – but now is not the time to ask. Perhaps she had family or friends there like he did. Perhaps she meant to say _his_ home. He keens softly with her. The allied fleet above Bridge was powerful, but apparently that was not good-enough to stop the reapers from touching down and leveling the city. He hopes his family managed to make it out and feels guilty for leaving them behind as he pursued work with Blackwatch. They did not deserve his absence like that, and now he may not even have a chance to say goodbye.

He has never seen her like this before. From the selection of negative emotions he has experienced her anxiety, discomfort, anger, and ire. But never once was she so _vulnerable_. He does not know what to say so he remains silent.

She has always kept quiet about her past and he deeply respects her right to it. She calls Bridge her home; he is surprised that they never met through any public channels and events that could have brought them together. Perhaps her family lived across the city, or maybe they met and he just does not remember because he was so enraptured with Lia. He keeps his questions to himself, but at the very least the reality of Acronus’ existence becomes clearer to him. At one point he found her secrecy detrimental to his capacity to trust her. Now he knows that her reasons to keep to herself are personal. To her credit, he speaks very little of his past as well.

Lanaai is clearly going through the same thing as everyone else. A great deal of this particular crew here have family on Bridge, so the rest of the cycle is somber with the news. With Bridge gone, there is nowhere left that has remained “untouched.” Deciding that morale could use a boost, he calls everyone to a communal meal, briefly lifting some regulations on rations and recreational beverages to help ease the pain. He receives no complaints from the crew, and if Ash has heard anything she does not tell him.

As they learn more about their _deus ex machina_ it becomes entirely obvious that, even if _Apophis_ was completed and ready to fire before the invasion, it would have had absolutely no effect. Even though it can be “everywhere at once” using a higher-order dimensional translation, the effect of this phenomenon requires amplification. The weapon has a limited effective radius because it uses the mass relay network to amplify its payload and reach the entire galaxy. If there are other galaxies with reapers, which seems inevitable according to _Acheron,_ this weapon cannot reach them.

They would have had to let the reapers invade to a certain extent to make effective use of the weapon. The notion that billions of people must die in order for the weapon to have a purpose in the first place leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. But Garrus accepts one evil in order to triumph over another.

He wants get out of this ship and fight on the ground where they need help. The reapers pay less attention to the fleets right now because most of their targets are on the ground.

Mordin is still holding up despite the news that his own people are being wiped from the face of the galaxy.

“Their call,” he says, “don’t associate anyway. Trusted you. I am safe. Still disappointed.”

“Do you ever think about… dare I say… the krogan. We haven’t heard anything from them,” _not good._

“Don’t bring up,” he warns and glares at him, “yes,” he admits sheepishly. “Loss of Eve devastating. Bothers me constantly. Would have made a wonderful diplomat. Would have listened… trusted you. Even if she thought you were a cloaca. Correspondence from Wrex not good either. Not optimistic for krogan. Unfortunate.”

Garrus hums in half-amusement half-pensiveness. Solus is probably right. Krogan allies would translate to enormous leverage on the ground, but there seems to be no alternative to Eve. A krogan working with a salarian was already alien-enough. He also does not push for details about this “Wrex” character, as Mordin would have mentioned him more often if it was relevant to their mission.

T’soni no longer pays attention to the news feeds regarding Thessia because they are all the same. She resigns to work around the clock and write constantly about her findings from the Ilos archives, all while clinging to the few-remaining threads of her information network. Her reports may not be directly related to the _Apophis_ project, but there have been several occasions where her research benefits their strategy against the reapers. Her access to information elsewhere is much more potent, and in most cases provides them with a much clearer picture of the strategic landscape; a grim one.

T’soni is still instrumental in the creation of technical documents for _Apophis_. Occasionally she will join her mind with his own or Acronus’ to gather and organize their visions; she seems to be the only one who can fulfill this task. She translates whatever she sees onto datasheets and forwards them to the engineers. Unlike himself and their fellow soldiers, T’soni does not feel the same sense of guilt from her safety. Garrus assumes that she always felt disconnected from her family and her people, so maintaining a willful veil of ignorance is how she copes with tragedy. Her experience as a broker must also contribute to her detached attitude.

They all learn to cope with the numbers after a while and begin to become numb to what they mean. They remain holed up out here guarding _Apophis_ with their lives without any conflict or directly-perceivable tragedy. They have to recruit another psychiatrist from a neighboring starship to aid with the trauma that has slowly built up among the crew here, especially the humans, simply from their inability to interact with the war at all. “Survivor’s guilt,” they call it. Turians similarly refer to it as “observer’s guilt.”

Another guilty section falls dead behind them as they continue construction. The Earth and Palaven fleets are in tatters by now. Despite their size, organization, technology, and the absolutely unethical force of the grand fleet’s armaments, the reapers whittle them down to nearly nothing.

There is no victory or defeat, however, only solved and unsolved problems. Garrus does his best to break down the complex issues into simpler, digestible chunks and then move on from there. At this time _Apophis_ seems to be nearing some kind of ready state. They have subsystems running and auxiliary power hooked up to the control consoles in the spire. They really cannot afford even another month of this. How they have managed to stay hidden so long in this location is a mystery to him.

Acronus comes to him with her proposal to send off their remaining defensive fleet to assist where they can as _Apophis_ nears completion. An extra push above Palaven, Earth, or even Rannoch would greatly help to mitigate the damage there.

“I…” _am afraid to say,_ “I want to send Focos, Quo’an, and Lo’kian with them. They need to deploy, Garrus.”

He bristles and his plates raise underneath his armor, _not my family,_ he growls. But he wants them to put themselves to good use out there where they are absolutely needed. This is what they wanted.

“I do not want to make that gamble anymore,” _we knew the risks,_ “We knew there would be loss,” _but not this much._

Acronus’ mandibles grind against her jaw.

“The defense fleet assigned to the station is too important to the survival of the galaxy as a whole… I cannot recommend compromising our safety,” _or everything is lost._

“Ruthless calculus. That’s why you’re in charge Garrus,” _you know what’s best,_ “but even then, if a single reaper finds out our location we won’t even crest three cycles. We have an entire fleet out here doing nothing.”

_You have authority,_ “Lanaai, if you feel that this is the best course of action, I will pull together the strategy for it from our previous plans. I don’t think it’s wise at this time, but I will support you,” _I always will. My brethren will as well._

He watches her drop her gaze and leave quietly without speaking. Later that cycle he receives a message on his omni-tool informing him of her verdict: she goes ahead with the plan anyway.

Oh well. Her judgment thus far has been nothing but sound and accurate, so she probably made the right choice. Garrus is well-aware that she knows the consequences of her choice, but she is attempting to save as many live as possible with the little resources they have remaining. Acronus backs her decisions with more emotion than is typical for a turian in her position. She is not cold to the plight of her brothers and sisters, as so many Generals and Captains become in order to tolerate inevitable loss and failure.

Several minutes later he receives a message from Focos questioning the order, but he affirms it as his body begins to freeze over. He finds his partners in the shuttle as they prepare their kits to transfer.

_Brother!_ Focos stands and approaches him, “Not sure how to feel about this, even though we requested it before. I’m glad we’re going out there, but I we aren’t the same team without you leading us. If this is the last time we talk…” _you are Benevolence, you are Spirit._ Focos stands on her toes and presses her forehead to his briefly, and warmth spreads through his chest.

Quo’an does the same, but without speaking.

_Spirits guide you,_ Lo’kian rumbles and grasps his wrist. Garrus bows his head and replies, _and you._ The three individuals who have spent nearly a decade at his side board the shuttle and leave for the departing fleet.

Garrus orchestrates movements of the fleets Acronus sent out, pestered by regret for doubting Acronus in the first place. His squad carries the prototype detector with them so they can attempt to kill two _raax_ with one spear. Within hours the few reapers lingering around Bridge are nothing but dust and any stragglers are terminated with extreme prejudice. Following that, initial strafing runs through Earth and Palaven’s chaotic atmospheres obliterate the descending reapers there. For the next couple of cycles their skies are clear and they have precious additional time to recuperate. He allows himself the luxury of hoping that they are able to make a difference by being the single grain that caused the landslide.

It all goes to shit when they begin deploying into the field to ease pressure on key evacuation sites and strongholds. The majority of the fleet ceases to respond.

* * *

Acronus gears up to make a risky maneuver in a last-ditch effort to lend a hand to Palaven and Earth. Everywhere else is too far gone to attempt assistance, and the few remaining, scattered salarian and asari fleets have resorted to guerrilla warfare at this point.

Some of the other sapient species are nowhere to be found. She assumes the krogan are fighting wherever they can, but the batarians, volus, hanar, drell… she wonders how many there will be left once this is all over. She expects _Apophis_ to be ready to activate in this section, so she thinks she can risk sending some of her fleet out to help where it can.

She thought she would have Garrus’ support on this one since he originally brought her the idea, but his indecisiveness now makes her doubt herself. Whether he realizes it or not, Garrus has the ultimate power to make anyone second guess themselves with very few words. She just cannot stand to see so much firepower stationed in one place doing nothing to help the dying worlds of their allies.

Garrus seems to leave her in a gray zone where she feels very uncomfortable going through with their original plan. Her other tactical advisers are split for the same reasons Garrus disagrees with her, but she knew her decision would ultimately hinge on his input. The lack of a definite answer makes her unreasonably anxious.

She still makes the call and hates herself for ripping three of Garrus’ closest friends away from him. She cannot watch the numbers climb at the same rate any longer, and it seems like it just keeps accelerating as increasingly-accurate reports roll in from various sources. She feels even guiltier because she is sitting here in her bubble of safety without any direct conflict. She still has the love her life by her side, her other half, her home. Very few people can say the same anymore. Her appetite begins to wane as her old tendencies towards self-deprecation and depression begin to fluoresce.

In just three periods since the invasion began most forms of economy have vanished which is just another anxiety machine for her: when this is all over, how are they going to rebuild? What will they rebuild to? How do they prevent themselves from doing exactly as _Acheron_ said? She is not hopeful that they can ever recover even if they stop the reapers from conducting this genocide.

The fleet she sends off has some of her most qualified people commanding it. She feels sick knowing that she has essentially sent them to their deaths, but she hopes that they have enough of a flank on their enemy to deal significant damage with minimal loss of life. The ships on this defensive fleet are the most unethically-powerful and over-engineered craft ever devised by sapient creatures, and they prove their worth in the field.

She wants to call it ironic that some of these destroyers and the larger C256 assault cruisers are fitted with weaponry based on reaper-style technology salvaged from the plans embedded into her mind. Two dreadnoughts, one for each fleet, are packed with enough firepower to render a small garden planet uninhabitable in one shot. They need to aim carefully.

They perform spectacularly for several cycles before they lose all contact with them. She just killed Garrus’ friends. She spends the better part of the following cycle in a non-functioning state, finding it impossible to drag herself out of her nest and face anyone, knowing what she has done. Somehow, despite her attempts to ignore the reality of the death toll, this event seems to be the final straw for her.

_There you are,_ “You missed your rounds, Acronus…” _I’m worried,_ Garrus’ voice rouses her.

_Spirits,_ she groans as she remembers that reality has continued without her, “Sorry I… sorry.”

_What’s wrong, I’m very concerned,_ he warbles, “What is this about?”

“They’re gone,” _your brothers and sisters._

_Oh,_ “I’m aware. They knew the risk. They made a difference,” _it hurts. They are with the spirits._

She sits up and begins pulling on her undersuit, _no they didn’t,_ “I sent them to die. I killed them. They didn’t even last three cycles!”

_This is war,_ “You can’t save everyone, Lanaai,” _and I apologize._

She wants to scoff and yell at him for such making such a patronizing statement, but it will not bring his friends back. She expected Garrus to feel their loss more than she does, but there must be something fundamentally different about his perspective. He is a pure-blooded turian and she is tainted with a human’s psyche. She may never understand how to see reality in that way. He has never seemed more alien to her than he does right now, when the fundamental basis of his mind and hers seem to differ completely. He comes across as heartless, but she knows that he put the values of his squad’s life before his own and before the mission.

* * *

“Garrus!” he jolts awake just two hours after going to sleep to the sound of Acronus’ voice, _we’re almost there,_ “Garrus, we have word from engineering… they think it is ready. T’soni and I have been going over progress and… It’s a bodge, but it should hold.”

“Spirits,” _already?_ he pulls himself upright in his nest

“Give me some numbers,” _so tired,_ he mumbles as his system boots up slowly, dragged back by dreariness.

_Okay?_ Lanaai, somewhat confused, raises her omni-tool and does exactly that. He lets them spin and organize in his mind, speaking the answers to him. They match the numbers the obelisk forced upon him during their second visit, which gives him the confidence to say:

_Now!_ “Activate it. As soon as possible. Let’s end this, Lanaai.”

Everything lines up in his head. It is as if a heap of needles suddenly flow into a perfect parallel array; there is perfect order and agreement. He feeds these numbers back to the engineering team on _Apophis_ right now who have access to the controls.

“I’m going to head to the spire to make sure they don’t mess it up,” _I have to make sure,_ he sits up and reaches for his compression suit.

“No way,” _you stay here,_ she practically barks at him, “you aren’t going near that damned obelisk anymore. We cannot risk another incident so close to the final push.”

He huffs but submits to her command. He is quite certain the obelisk would not take him under again, but he holds his tongue.

They have positive indicators all across the board. The combined efforts of Lanaai and T’soni’s translation work pays off as the crew verifies readouts. They will be ready to activate the weapon in several hours. They will win this. His heart begins to race at the prospect of a future… a future with Lanaai by his side.

The intrusion of the reapers here is jarring, but he does not let that faze him. _Apophis_ gathers its energy and starts to glow, emitting regular pulses of high-intensity radiation with increasing frequency. They just have to hold out against an attack for another hour or so.

He finds Ash on the bridge with Lanaai discussing strategy using what little data they have about the enemy presence approaching them. The enemy fleet is clumped together, giving them options for evasive maneuvers. His main concern is with keeping everyone here, including the geth manufacturing lines stationed nearby, alive. Lanaai and Ash are more preoccupied with guaranteeing that the weapon fires at any cost.

With a half-hour remaining they have to withdraw the engineering team from their post on the spire. They barely make it out alive as _Apophis_ begins an irreversible cascade of energy concentration. They have to move to a much farther position from the station to avoid being roasted by the high-frequency and high-energy radiation.

The reapers will be unable to stop it now, which reduces his anxiety considerably, but they still have to protect themselves and several other allied vessels in their remaining fleet. In the final minutes as they continue to back away, a single reaper scout comes hurdling around the sphere station with its sights set on the _Indictor_.

Garrus reaches the battery and takes his place at a console, looking at the numbers as their C256 main accelerator warms up. He never thought they would see a need to fire this weapon, but now he _needs_ see this beautiful piece of machinery activated. He needs to _feel_ it. He has to pull the trigger on one reaper in this damned war. The other engineers move off to other consoles and occasionally bark commands at each other. They sight their target and the massive accelerator lets loose a single, powerful, planet-shattering round.

He actually feels himself flying across the room for a split second before regaining his balance and returning his focus to the readouts. The shot must have really disrupted the mass effect field down here. But he also felt… very hot. He considers it for only a few seconds before his ears pop and he feels a pressure wave. Not enough time to react to the wall of fire that consumes him. There is a final moment in which he registers weightlessness.


	36. Chapter 36

Reports from the _Apophis_ engineering teams come in just as she is about to doze off. They have completed and installed all required components to get _Apophis_ into a firing-ready state. The station is not entirely complete, but it will be enough to activate at least twice before they would have to inspect for system damage. She runs to T’soni’s quarters to give her the news and the new data; Acronus wants to make sure that the translations and main sequence is correct before going and waking Garrus.

“T’soni!” _Hey!_ she shouts excitedly as she pushes her way into T’soni’s quarters. Liara jumps in surprise and look up from her desk.

“What is it?” she can sense the excitement in Lanaai’s voice.

“Engineering thinks the station is ready to activate. I want your opinion on these readouts before I give the ‘go-ahead,’” _no mistakes allowed._

“Let me see!” she stands up and rushes over to her main console and ushers Acronus to join her. The two women query the vast array of documents generated from the depths of their minds to find the instructions for this stage.

“There!” Acronus stops T’soni and points to a section of the script that unfolds from gibberish to meaningful text before her eyes.

 _The cataclysm cannot be stopped. No infinite void or apocalyptic supernova can stop the gears of the universe,_ she reads and scowls. A list of instructions indicate a number of control surfaces and parameters that need to be set in order to activate the station’s payload.

“The numbers look sound. Do you believe it?” T’soni asks, skeptically.

 _What?_ Acronus trills, “What do you mean?”

“Do you believe that rather bold claim that this station cannot be stopped once ‘started?’”

“That’s probably a better question to ask Vakarian,” _he would know,_ Acronus’ brow furrows, “but at the very least we have most of the firing solution. I think Vakarian has the rest of it. I’m going to go talk to him,” _I have to._

“It’s the middle of the rest cycle,” T’soni raises her brow.

“I know him,” _he’ll be fine,_ “he’ll want to get a jump on this as soon as possible.”

“Alright, Lanaai. Let me know what he says,” T’soni turns back to the images on the holo-screen and begins writing something down on her omni-tool. Acronus rushes into the halls.

She dives into his nest and rouses him with her wild subharmonics: both soaring with elation and apologies for waking him. She fumbles around for her omni-tool when he asks for numbers without specifying what he means. Still, she begins to read off the preliminary power measurements collected from _Apophis_ ’ subsystems. Garrus seems to sober up as he rests his gaze upon her.

The major development is bittersweet because their proximal defensive sensor network begins to detect a reaper presence. They have no time to lose now; they either active _Apophis_ or they die just like every previous civilization. Perhaps the reapers really were using _Apophis_ as a lure just like they used the relays and the Citadel, and they have been marching into the fire this whole time.

Now she starts wishing she had kept more of the fleet she had just sent off. She immediately gives the order to activate _Apophis_ – there is no reason to wait any longer. Garrus’ confidence bleeds into hers and it seems as if they might finally pull this off… assuming the weapon does anything at all.

Williams approaches her to discuss combat planning for the inevitable battle.

“Captain,” Williams has her professional voice on right now, which means she is stressed out.

“Reapers are closing on the station. I think we need to get our fleet between them and our weapon. Only problem is managing collateral.”

“I tend to agree,” _protect at all costs,_ “There isn’t exactly a question about whether the station is their intended target. The question is how long can we hold them off so that we guarantee its activation,” speaking about throwing bodies in front of the enemy like this feels uncomfortable to her, but they _have_ to make sure _Apophis_ activates.

“ _Indictor_ and _Horizon_ can take point while the smaller craft fire from the back, dreadnoughts _Valemeris_ and _Sahara_ will take the front and block,” Williams puts a finger to her chin.

“You sure?” _risky,_ Acronus replies, “if they blast out their mainsails then they’re just in the way.”

“That’s the point,” Williams replies, smirking mirthlessly, “they can take a lot more of a beating than the rest of our frigates and cruisers.”

“I suppose,” _alright,_ “as long as we keep the two dreadnoughts far-enough apart that we have no chance of a collision if one loses engines.”

Garrus materializes in the CIC without her noticing how he got in.

“They’ve started the firing sequence, nothing can stop it now,” _it’s impossible,_ he says simply. Hearing him say it forces her to believe in the documents, “I highly-recommend we retreat to safe distance and guard the geth. If we need to make repairs to the station during a fight with the reapers, they are our only chance.”

“Are you sure, Vakarian?” _the station?_ she wants to protest, but he really knows what he is talking about.

“Garrus, if the reapers get at the station they’ll have no problems ripping it to pieces,” Williams sounds very bothered that he is contradicting her plans. Acronus considers bringing Kryik up here to clam her down.

“Ash,” _listen,_ he always switches to English when speaking to her; he must not notice that he does it, “the soonest the reapers can arrive here is in several hours. At that time the station will barely even exist in our space-time. The reapers can shoot at it all they want but – if they want to fight _us_ at the same time – the station will be physically impossible to hit. We are going to protect the manufacturing fleet,” _I’m not really asking._

 _I agree,_ Acronus rumbles. She fears his disapproval more than she fears anything else, so she sides with him on this one. This irritates Williams, but she is outnumbered so she concedes to the conservative strategy.

“Fine. I hope you’re right about this Garrus.”

 _Few things I take for granted,_ Garrus places a hand on Williams’ shoulder, “Ash, I lived through several million years of nightmares to know that this is true. You can trust me on this.”

Williams blanches and stands there awkwardly.

They spend their remaining hours arranging their ships in a defensive cloud around the manufacturing lines and preparing a minefield to try to snare the incoming reaper fleet. They warm up the primary cannons on their assault craft so they can ready to fire the moment the have a shot. In the distance, _Apophis_ has begun to glow as it cultivates the incredible quantity of energy required to fire. Garrus is in and out of the CIC while he oversees the engineering team on the spire, and eventually he orders them to withdraw before they are annihilated by the station.

Thirty minutes later the reapers begin to appear. The first to arrive plow into the minefield and perish as their cores are extinguished. Their fleet begins to orient towards the enemy so they can begin a barrage of suppressing fire. A smaller reaper scout rockets out from the fleet and heads in their direction, putting itself directly in the line of sight of their main cannon.

Acronus does not hesitate to give control of the weapons to their ordinance team. They can take down the scout without an issue as long as they score the first hit. Joker and Nissus spool up their maneuvering drives and prepare to lug their massive assault cruiser into a fight with a much smaller, yet much nimbler reaper scout. She reminds her crew not to underestimate this craft, which can paralyze even the largest dreadnoughts with its energy weaponry. Its agility makes her nervous, because she knows it will easily be able to flank them and potentially hit more vulnerable sections of their shielding if they are not careful. Garrus takes off to the rear battery to help monitor their weapon performance and make adjustments if necessary. Their smaller, nimbler frigates prepare to pursue the scout if it gets too close to their defensive line.

The scout does exactly what she feared and outflanks them almost immediately, drawing several frigates out of their fleet in pursuit. She can hear Joker and Nissus arguing at the helm as they continue to turn to face the scout because their main accelerator is fixed. Their sisters pepper the scout with fire but they do little except bother it – however, the reaper appears impatient because it takes some lousy potshots in their direction and scurries about erratically.

Their shields hold as it circles around and comes within range of their C256 accelerator again, which is a world-ender. _Indictor’s_ entire frame shudders and she can feel the artificial gravity sharply increase as they unleash a single shot upon the reaper. It connects instantly, vaporizing the majority of their enemy and sending chunks flying outwards. The pitiful remainder of its lower half spins and flails, sending one final crimson beam sweeping through the void. She curses when it hits something on the back of the ship as it draws a line across the stars. The other ships in the fleet, including their Alliance sister _Horizon,_ open fire on the cloud of reapers that grows thicker by the minute.

Fire in the rear battery. Her stomach drops into her pelvis. That is exactly where Garrus is right now.

She glances at the damage report. Twelve casualties with varying degrees of severity and two suspected fatalities. She bares her teeth and growls angrily that two of her crew were taken so close to the resolution of this war. What if one of those two is Garrus? She has to force herself to stay on the bridge and not flee to engineering to protect her mate. The pulses from _Apophis_ finally halt and the entire station disappears. Their ship jolts towards it as the space around it collapses and yanks everything inwards. She has this amazing sense of clarity, and watches the next several seconds of reality approach as if on rails. The comms specialist to her right speaks the exact words, the tactician stumbles with his right foot leading, and everyone looks around, bewildered.

Not even a second later _Apophis_ materializes and throws everyone in the bridge forward with the sudden jolt in the opposite direction. The comms specialist to her right speaks the exact words and the tactician stumbles with his right foot leading. Several seconds of confused silence pass before they pick everything back up and get to work once more. _Apophis_ waits there, now dormant, while the engineering teams reconnect to it to determine its status. The quickest indication that it did anything comes from their cameras; visually the reapers have stopped doing anything. Sensor data confirms it moments later.

“Did I say to stop firing?” _I don’t want any traces left!_ she barks into the relative quiet of the CIC.

The fleet continues to fire at the reapers ruthlessly. _Good._

Several minutes later the QEC transmits a message from Palaven: the reapers have ceased their attack. The monstrous craft hanging in the pull of Palaven are now falling to the ground or burning up in the atmosphere. It appears they may have achieved their victory, or as Garrus would phrase it: “solved their problem.”

There is cheering throughout as they confirm, slowly but surely, that the reapers are damaged beyond repair. The ground forces – husks, brutes, banshees, marauders, the works – the abominations and the nightmares, drop like bags of grain. She reiterates the order to keep firing on them to the rest of the Hierarchy’s fleets. There is no way they will allow these creatures to exist any longer. For all they know, these effects may only be temporary so they must take full advantage of their situation. Some part of her mind is telling her that they must also destroy the weapon itself to prevent a reactivation event, but she ignores it: they _need Apophis_ in case the reapers wake up again.

Lanaai scrambles out of the bridge and sprints to the rear battery. The galaxy can handle itself for the next ten minutes while she handles the one person who matters.

She finds the medical teams down there already, tending to several turian and human crew members who have some nasty burn wounds and cuts from shrapnel. That one shot must have hit a LOX tank and sent a blast through the thin plating of the rear battery. Unbelievable. Garrus is nowhere to be found which she hopes means they already took him to the medbay.

“Where is Vakarian?” _tell me!_ she barks at one of the medics who jumps in shock.

 _Spirits!_ “The Commander was moved to medbay 1-alpha. Arrived twenty seconds ago in critical condition.”

“Fuck!” she curses and then streaks off to go find him. He cannot die from this one lucky shot, not when they have just won this fight. She is being selfish; two of her crew died down there and here she is focusing on just one man.

Lanaai practically barges her way into the emergency room in which she finds three clusters of doctors working feverishly. Three blood bags: blue, blue, red. One of the surgeons looks up and makes eye contact briefly with her before whipping his arm around to grab a platekit and hand it to his colleague.

She is frozen to the spot, afraid to leave in case Garrus needs her but also afraid to interfere with the clockwork-like process. Garrus’ scent, or rather the tangy and unpleasant scent of his oxidizing blood cells, hits her nostrils like a rampaging _agarren_. It is easy to determine just how badly he has been injured from its potency.

One of the nurses is now talking to her and she has to pull her focus forward.

 _So worried,_ “I’m sorry what?” she finally speaks, her throat completely dry.

 _Vacate, please,_ “Captain, I must request that you leave for now so that we can work at optimum efficiency. My apologies-”

Octavian suddenly cuts him off, _disregard,_ “Stop. Captain, come here.”

She moves, following his orders. Master surgeons hold higher authority in the emergency room than she does in general.

There he is: there is _her Garrus_ all torn up and gashed and oozing. She keens and clamps a hand over her mouth. The right side of his face and chest are chewed-up. The pathetic remnant of a mandible has already been stapled to the side of his face to keep it from getting torn off. His right-sided primary fringe is completely gone and his central primary fringe has been severed off about half way up. Plates are missing from his pectoral region and a chunk of his cowl is gone; skin is so thin in some places that she can see under it to the muscles beneath. All manners of tubes and wires are threaded down his throat. He is barely alive.

Octavian glances over at some instrumentation and trills with thinly-veiled satisfaction, _good,_ “he’s stabilizing. Administer 20cc of _intexavicin_ and finalize the extraction paths. I want bandages prepped. This is going to take several hours. Platekits on standby for Septimus over there. Let’s get Tercius and Jennot into bags, neither are salvageable,” _prepare a vigil. They go with the Spirits._

Acronus blanches at the mention of the two deceased crew members. Tercius’ sister is on board at this moment. Jennot’s husband is on one of the accompanying Alliance fleet ships. More pain to numb the pain.

“Pull up a seat for the captain,” _now,_ he snaps. She feels herself forced into a chair before she can comprehend his order, and arranged so that she is facing parallel to the bed. The massive spider-like array of medical arms lowers into position of above Garrus’ body to begin working on shrapnel extraction. Octavian takes her hand and slices her palm with a scalpel, creating a perfectly-straight, thin cobalt line. The assistants working closely nearby are hardly fazed.

 _What the-_ she starts as he does the same on Garrus’ palm. The doctor places Garrus’ forearm onto a lowered arm rest and then moves hers to rest atop his, so that their palms press into each other. He ties their hands and wrists together with gauze so they cannot separate.

 _There is nothing more powerful,_ “Faster than any medicine; a rare luxury. He would be dead if you two weren’t… close. My apologies, you’ll be here until we’re finished,” _or he dies._

She gulps. She has never heard of this practice before, but she is prepared to comply with any measure if it means her mate has a chance at survival. The signals on the monitors drastically improve as his heart rate and breathing slow, and his entire body relaxes.

Several hours pass in what seems like minutes, and when she begins to pay attention to reality once more, they have Garrus already bandaged up. Octavian removes the gauze from their wrists, cleans their wounds with IPA, then finally seals them with medigel.

 _He needs you,_ “stay with him. Touch him or talk to him if you feel so inclined,” _carefully, please,_ he turns away. She takes Garrus’ limp hand in hers again and squeezes it anxiously, wondering how much longer he may have. Two turian assistants stay with Garrus and herself to monitor the readouts and keep him pumped full of anesthetics, rapid healing agents, and blood.

His body has gone into emergency mode, leaving him comatose _again_. It is her fault for sending half the damn fleet off to help with external efforts. Seeing him broken like this shatters her resolve and it nearly drives her into seclusion where she can scream and cry her agony and fear away. But she has to stay healthy and hold on so that when Garrus wakes up – he at least has something to wake up to… unlike Tercius’ sister and Jennot’s husband.

She forces herself to attend the vigil for Tercius and to write a letter of condolence for Jennot’s significant other. She owes it to them to show her support despite how disgusted she feels that she allowed this to happen. It is even more insulting that they are the _only_ two fatalities in this fleet. She receives no reply from Maia’s husband after sending the message over and decides that she has to let it go if she wants to stay sane. Garrus was right: she cannot be responsible for assuming everyone’s grief. Focus on the ones that made it. It could have been so much worse.

Still, it becomes challenging to find the motivation to do anything else besides rest beside Garrus every day, crooning and vocalizing softly to him in the hopes that she will break him from his deep sleep. She has to wrench herself from his non-existent grasp in order to return to command and plan their next actions. They have a galaxy to start rebuilding, starting with the Hierarchy. Others come by to visit him while she is gone: T’soni, Williams, Joker, the remainder of Garrus’ squad that she did not murder, Solus. She sometimes converses with them, but she mostly forgets what they say.

Within several cycles the other two patients are allowed to walk. They were both extremely lucky. Despite losing a lot of blood each, they suffered no broken bones and no mental side effects from the whiplash. This leaves just herself and Garrus, and occasionally Octavian or Chakwas who periodically check on his condition. Garrus remains very much the same as he was in the previous cycles: comatose.

The reapers destroyed so much that their minds have trouble comprehending the vastness of it. However, despite the destruction of life, the economy comes back in what seems like days, ironically. As if this war did not even exist, the old ways emerge once again and there is immediately economic hardship and stinginess. There are incredible shortages of supplies, in large part because people “in power” selfishly hoard them or hold them hostage. The Hierarchy has fewer problems with this, but it definitely causes issues. It will take many sections to start up proper freight lines again and get aid out to those who need it.

At least the relays are still fully-functional.

The Hierarchy managed to keep its Primarch alive despite the constant assault on Palaven. Acronus converses with him and whatever Alliance powers they can rope into their talks. The turians prepared for this war, and as a result they were able to minimize the losses to their overall command structure. They have protocols in place that dictate how to recover from bottlenecks, but none as profound as this.

They still lost significantly more lives in combat than any other specie and she can already feel the pain of billions of grieving mothers, fathers, mates, friends, and children, but they will recover to their pre-war strength much faster than any other. Turians rationalize war and death much differently than other species, and the only reason she is struggling with it is because she is _not turian._ The Alliance’s last-minute preparations also had a positive impact on their recovery time. She takes no shame in reminding them that Shepard and Williams saved their asses even though they threw both into the mud.

The salarians and asari were not nearly so lucky, and it will take much longer for them to re-establish their standing in the galaxy, especially now that everyone knows just how inert they really were in this conflict.

Zorah sends her a very cheerful message that Rannoch mostly remained untouched – at least she made it out alive as well. The quarians played a major role in the preservation of life and she expects that they will easily achieve a council position after this.

Legion is quiet for a while but he does eventually send her a message. The heretic geth were utterly wiped out after the reapers shut down. They are unrecoverable. He mourns the loss of his former brothers and sisters who he hoped to save, but he knows there was little anyone could do under the time constraints. He plans to focus his efforts on peace talks with the quarians now that they have time, and begin to support several million alien guests they have crammed into liveships.

The gratitude she receives from both the Alliance and the Hierarchy for sending reinforcements their way do little to defeat her feelings of guilt. Garrus was right all along and she was wrong to doubt him. She should have known better…

She finally decides she needs to do something productive with her hands and checks out a hardsuit. In the early hours of the cycle she flies into the vacuum and soars away from the confines of the metal prison that holds her guilt and her worry, finally feeling something greater. She cruises around the hull of the _Indictor_ so she can go perform a manual inspection on the damage inflicted by the reaper.

The ablative paint is blackened where the beam crossed the undercarriage, and the center of the explosion is clearly marked. Why the designers decided to put a LOX tank so close to a shielding node and directly between the outer plating and the main battery is beyond her; she assumes it came down to time and cost. Shield nodes are almost impossible to hit, but the reapers were unlike any known enemy. If they are lucky they might be able to produce better shielding technology based on what the teams learned while they completed _Apophis._ Lanaai falls into the familiar routine of prepping the scanners and opening a new data log for a damage report. She allows this to take her mind away from their problems momentarily.

She finds herself in the medbay at Garrus’ side several hours later, having blanked out her return and filing of the report.

Eventually they rendezvous with one of the closer turian fleets so they can re-stock their medical supplies and repair the, quite ironically, minor hull damage caused by the reaper’s energy weapon. Within several hours some additional turian crew board their craft, including one of the last people Acronus thought she would see again: Kel Litha. The striking female briefly looks over her and then moves past without saying a word.

When Acronus enters the medbay again several hours later to spend her mandatory time with Garrus, Litha is there, working on his body. Lanaai’s first instinct is to fight and force the demon away from her mate, but she knows Litha can spin miracles with her fingers. Garrus is guaranteed to survive under her careful eye and impossibly skilled hands. Litha looks up with a neutral expression and regards her before taking a step back and sauntering towards the door. She places her hand on Lanaai’s shoulder briefly on her way out.

Seeing Litha here brings back thoughts about her purpose. Garrus’ bandages have been changed several times since he first went under, but she was not present for any of these events. She saw the initial carnage that hides beneath them, but not since the first dressing. Litha would have heard about this and made her way here of her own volition, presumably because she understands how important Garrus’ survival is for the future of the entire species. Lanaai is acutely aware that Litha will render any signs of damage on Garrus’ body invisible.

She knows Garrus. He is not vain, but he understands that he is attractive and takes great care in maintaining his appearance, both for himself and for his potential mates. His confidence in his self-image gives him confidence in general. He is also stubborn, and his opinions are usually quite strongly-rooted, especially when they pertain to his own personality or character. If he wakes up and finds himself missing pieces and covered with scars – if he finds himself disgusting – no matter how much she reassures him that he is still beautiful to her, he would never believe her. He needs to be happy with himself in order to be happy in her company, and up until now he has been successful. She will allow Litha to work her dark magic on her mate if it means that he wakes up the same man that he was.

“Acronus,” _who is she,_ “I was unaware we were having a guest,” Octavian asks warily after Litha leaves and he returns.

“She’s here for Vakarian,” _she will fix him,_ Acronus replies simply.

“Do you know her?” _you seem sure,_ his mandibles click against his jaw in irritation.

“You could certainly say that,” _yes,_ Acronus snorts, “if she gives you trouble then let me know. But she won’t. She is here for Vakarian,” she repeats, _and she has control._

Octavian rumbles nervously but no longer presses her on it. He probably cannot believe that someone so young has the skill to repair such damage. Acronus can hardly believe it, but she knows better. She assumes that Litha already has additional supplies on the way to help her, because their medbay is definitely not equipped with what she needs.

Garrus’ perspective about victory vs problem solving becomes particularly relevant in the sections following the deactivation of the reapers.

“Victory” implies something heroic and magnificent. In reality, they have solved one problem and now they have many more to deal with… her hope was not that they would win, but that it would be over. It is _not,_ in fact, over. There are reaper carcasses floating around all over the galaxy, clouding up space and falling to the ground, burning; several billion kilograms of superheated alloy and polymers is arguably much more destructive than the energy weapons alone. To make matters worse, there are literally billions of decaying bodies strewn out across multiple planets which make some places impossible to return to. The rotting biomass is irresistible to predators – some incredibly dangerous – and disease vectors.

The majority of the reaper-generated abominations fell over dead with the pulse, but some regained their sense of self after having the indoctrination ripped away. Suicide rates for these individuals are astronomically high as they are so disgusted with themselves that death is preferable to waiting for a potential “cure.”

After they cool and the fires have been dealt with, the reaper carcasses themselves are dangerous and difficult to move without proper machinery. They have already killed numerous civilians and warriors just by falling over and crushing them, or by impacting the ground at terminal velocity and sloshing molten metal all about. These massive armor-clad entities are extremely heavy and may never be able to be moved or fully broken apart. The cleanup effort alone is going to cost everyone a fortune they do not have.

The Citadel’s superstructure remains in decent condition, but the same cannot be said about its populace which the reaper forces annihilated. Several emergency signals have been detected across the station from the lucky few who managed to survive the reaper onslaught there. They will need all the luck in the galaxy to survive the inevitable resource shortage and subsequent descent into anarchy. The Alliance and the Hierarchy are trying to get response teams out as soon as possible.

Acronus thinks it unwise to ever go back. They need to build a new platform which they can guarantee has no remnant effects of indoctrination.

The krogan manage to make contact with a turian patrol which verifies that their species is not extinct yet. The same cannot be said for others like the batarians or vorcha. It is unclear how many are left in the galaxy, but their homeworld and various colonies are absolutely devoid of life. The krogan have suffered extensively, but they are notoriously durable. Though they initially triumphed on the ground against the softer reaper forces, their overlords quickly adapted and just started glassing the surface of Tuchanka in retaliation. They did make it, ultimately.

Solus is rattled by the idea that several sapient races could very likely be extinct right now as a result of this conflict. He mentions something about giving the krogan a second chance, but he does not talk about it when pressed.

Acronus considers it. She has never thought of the krogan as “stable” but she has no experience with them. She wonders if attempting to welcome them aboard a new galactic council would bring stability and diplomacy to a historically undiplomatic cluster of warring clans, especially now that there are very few krogan left over. She is in no place to make those kinds of decisions however. She suggests it to the Primarch who responds very neutrally, as if he has already considered such a possibility.

The remaining asari and salarian craft manage to integrate themselves with allied fleets. Neither of them have much left, despite demanding their way into the reformation of a new galactic council. Acronus will hear none of this while the quarians are still reaching a summit with the geth. Word from both Zorah and Legion indicate that they are close to a peaceful agreement, the prospect of which brightens her day despite knowing that Garrus is still comatose in the room next to her and there really is nothing left over in the galaxy except agony and suffering right now.

One foot in front of the other.

The remnants of the fleet she sent out before they activated _Apophis_ makes contact and provide a grim report of the damages. There are very few survivors, most of whom are turians. The fleet was massacred by reapers shortly after they swept through several of the outer turian colony planets. The humans contingency lost all of their ships in space, some to direct fire and others to malfunctioning heat sinks which condemned them to plummet to the ground below. The single remaining turian starship was able to land and access the remnants of the nearby colony to retrieve any rations they could find. Many of the human crew that survived the crash died from exposure to poisonous spores from the flora to which the turians have immunity.

Tara Focos – 1Φ years –, Kaepler Quo’an – 20 years –, and Geran Lo’kian – 1Δ years –, were all killed in their run on Palaven shortly after leaving _Apophis._ All too young. Their lives were traded for the Primarch and his advisers, as well as several of Special Forces command, the head of Blackwatch, and the head of the Cobalt Guard. Acronus already came to terms with their deaths, but she hates the reminder of it. She needs to hold a vigil for them, but she feels like doing so without Garrus would be sacrilege. She informs Sidonis and Nissus because they have the right to know.

They also gathered invaluable data about the indoctrinated individuals they encountered. The prototype detector was recovered, miraculously, and returned with a perfectly-calibrated baseline. Should the reapers ever reactivate, they now have a pro-active defense against their insidious ways.

Acronus returns to logistics and coordination to assess the damage to Palaven and what it will take to start up industry and economy once more. Several massive turian-run corporations, namely Aurer, already seem to be recuperating, repairing their production capacity and creating stable living conditions for thousands – if not tens of thousands – of displaced turians.

She still rests with Garrus every cycle despite his steady condition. Litha works on him as well, but she always replaces the bandages when she finishes up a long session, so Lanaai has been unable to see any changes. Litha has nothing to say at the moment, as she is still working on a solution to the problem.

Lanaai is exhausted and unable to find any relief in her day-to-day. Ordinarily Garrus’ presence would have a calming effect on her, but seeing him lying there only augments her anxiety. Other turians on board must smell it because they start propositioning her to rut more often than before, and now that her body is growing restless, she finds it more difficult to restrain herself.

She would never betray Garrus like that. Never. Not while she is still sane and capable. She asks Octavian for suppressants which he reluctantly supplies. She figures it should hold her off for another couple of sections before she will resort to asking Litha to do something unethical. Litha knows the body she constructed better than Acronus, so she assumes that a remedy for this may have been included in the plans.

It turns out Litha has already invented a solution, and as expected it appears to be of questionable ethics in its formulation. However, her constant work on reconstructing Garrus’ heavily marred plates and mangled fringes made such a thing almost an inevitability. Litha approaches her one day with a syringe and discusses its contents.

 _This will help you,_ “I condensed a β-pheromone solution from him and suspended it in a protein-rich liquid substrate. He may not wake for another several periods, and you need relief. And sleep,” _now,_ she clicks her mandibles together.

Then, without any forewarning, Litha injects the contents of the syringe into her neck. The effect is immediate and Lanaai almost loses her balance from the quick release she experiences. She grunts unceremoniously as Litha catches her without even a flinch.

“Thank you,” _I needed it,_ Lanaai says quietly before turning her attention to Garrus and starting her usual pattern of quiet cooing and purring. Litha leaves them alone for the remainder of the cycle before Lanaai drops off to sleep at his side.

The cycles roll by and the plans they made begin to take shape. There is a major celebration in the mess hall when the news of a geth-quarian peace treaty makes it their way. Acronus balks at how quickly the information gets around – she just received word from Zorah and Legion at the break of the cycle, before First, and already it has become public knowledge.

The tentative council, which consists of an asari matriarch, a new dalatrass, a new human councilor, and a new turian councilor, discuss electing a quarian councilor. The asari and salarians are cold to the idea but they really cannot argue against it. After all, the quarian live ships designed to aid with evacuation saved countless asari and salarian lives.

Williams keeps her up-to-date with the rebuilding efforts on Earth while Acronus follows the effort on Palaven, both of which seem to be making decent headway, all things considered. They have to put on their own masks before their neighbor’s because there can be no way to help the asari and salarian homeworlds rebuild if they do not help themselves first. The reformed geth manufacturing fleets have begun to trickle into Earth’s and Palaven’s orbit to aid the cleanup ordeal. Acronus can already see evidence that Atlas, Meridian, and Horizon are going to attempt to seize control over Earth whenever they possibly can to eliminate competition. Acronus no longer cares, as long they do not interfere with with the reconstruction efforts of the Hierarchy.

Acronus talks to her engineering team about _Apophis_ , still concerned about the likelihood that it could be captured and used as a weapon at some point because there is so much element zero in there. They assuage her concerns: for the same reasons no one has figured out how to convert mass relays into effective weapons, no one will be able to do so for _Apophis_ either. Garrus and herself are the only ones with the knowledge to fire it. She hopes she is not making a mistake by trusting both their judgment, and her own.

Sudden assistance comes unwarranted from Aegis. Acronus has no idea what Aegis is or how they have _so much,_ but that seems to be a problem to discuss at a later date. In fact, _no one_ really knows about Aegis except that the turians control it and guard it so heavily that no one has attempted to infiltrate since the Alliance craft that attacked it – the bombing of Aegis – was completely vaporized. Acronus is denied information by Special Forces command. At the very least the relief provided by the influx of resources from this vault of a system is massive. Palaven begins to breathe. Taetrus begins to breathe. Turians stranded on remote colony worlds without proper access to sustenance now have access to food, water, and much-needed medical supplies.

With these supplies come a number of mysterious crates and unlabeled medical supplies for Litha, which find their way into the medbay of the _Indictor._ Litha converts an annex of the main room into what she calls a “greyhouse.” She has the room locked so that no one can go on there except herself. Acronus never sees Litha enter or exit this room; no one does.

Spending time with Garrus’ recovering body becomes such an automatic part of her biorhythm that she will often find herself by his side without clear memories of how she ended up there. Her work keeps her up and about as she moves between her workstation and meetings all over the _Indictor_ , but he is a fixed point in her ridiculous schedule. Perhaps it is for the best that he has been forced to rest like this, because spirits know he was working himself almost literally to death in the cycles leading up to the activation of _Apophis_.

She decides to intervene, feeling that one more day in the presence of his body but the absence of his mind will destroy her.

“Liara,” she greets the woman who has surrounded herself with a sea of monitors and light, as usual, _Spirits you always work._

T’soni looks up and stops her furious assault on the keyboard, as if what she is writing must be completed in the next thirty seconds or she dies.

“Yes, Lanaai?” at least she understands that they are off-shift right now. She adds a few more keystrokes and then slaps what must be the “send” shortcut before switching the monitors off and turning her full attention towards Lanaai.

“I…” Lanaai considers easing into the subject of using a meld to raise someone from a coma, but she does not have that kind of patience right now. Liara is also not known for “small talk,” and has often trapped her crew mates in lengthy and uncomfortable philosophical conversations. It explains why she spent so much time around Lo’kian.

 _Need a favor,_ “is it possible to use a meld to break someone out of a coma?”

Liara glances towards the wall, considering the implications of the question and her own response to it all at once. Garrus is the only one on board right now who is comatose, so Lanaai’s phrasing is more diplomatic than it needs to be.

“Yes. Now if you’re asking whether or not _I_ can perform that kind of task…” she sighs and purses her lips, “I can. I’m probably the least-qualified person to do so, but mother she… she taught me. I’ve… done it at least once before.”

Lanaai clamps her mandibles against her jaw, unwilling to follow the conversation down that dark alleyway. She waits for Liara to continue and flutters her mandibles after a moment.

“This is about Garrus,” she mumbles; not really a question.

 _I need him,_ “Yes,” Lanaai replies stiffly. Liara’s lips press into a line and she looks down at the desk just to avoid the piercing eye-contact.

“I owe him a great deal. If it were anyone else I would not even consider it. It will be easy for me to sustain a link between you two, especially because… you two seem close and I… I know Garrus so well.”

Lanaai scowls as she wonders what _that_ is supposed to mean. Liara continues without sparing her a moment.

“Ultimately he is in control of where you go and what you see in there. You will be relegated exclusively to shared memories of yours, anything outside that will be unintelligible. It’s dangerous – you run the risk of ruining his perception of reality if you compromise the integrity of his memories too much. He would wake up from the coma, but he might start to see reality as if it was a dream. Are you prepared to take that chance?”

Lanaai swallows and nods. Liara leans back in her chair and stretches her neck.

“Alright, Lanaai,” she speaks as she returns to looking at her monitors, “I’ll meet you in the medbay tomorrow at your usual visitation time. Take care to clear your mind of tension, for his sake. I have to start meditating on it.”

“Thank you so much, Liara,” _Spirits guide you. I am about to break,_ is the best she can offer in return for the immense favor she is asking of her “friend.”

Lanaai returns to Garrus and begins shuffling through reports on her datapad with one hand while intertwining her fingers with his using the other. Despite their previous melding to extract information about the sphere station, she is anxious about this. Those were clinical and directed while this will be incredibly personal and highly volatile. She will be entirely at his mercy, and if she happens to land in the wrong place he might just reject her presence entirely. She is risking his trust in her by observing his memories and potentially tampering wit them. Losing his trust would be much worse than death.

In the following cycle when she enters the medbay, she is shocked to see that all bandages except one have been removed from Garrus’ body. She keens before she can properly control herself at the sight of her mate without any sign of scarring or damage. His fringes and plates shine. The mandible that was all but missing rests peacefully against his jaw. Even the _seravim_ that he lost has been immaculately and meticulously replaced with Vakarian Cobalt. She can never quite decide if she hates or loves Litha for what she has accomplished.

Liara joins her in the following cycle and gasps as she lays her eyes upon Garrus, just as surprised as Lanaai to find him repaired.

“Wow,” is all that comes out of her mouth as she approaches.

Lanaai briefly holds her gaze before offering her hand to the asari. Liara takes Garrus’ hand and her chest rises as she takes in a breath. Her lips part and she slowly releases the air in her lungs. Lanaai closes her eyes and waits for the familiar void of the meld, but the exhale seems to go on forever and increase in volume until the sound of it becomes wind and chirpers. When she opens her eyes it is dark and the stars are out.

The Coballum is just a few paces ahead of them. She tenses up as she enters her body, causing Garrus to react immediately. This is the _last_ place she wants to be right now – this memory is so dear to the two of them that tampering with it at all is like fumbling with the wires on a bomb. Garrus brought her here, however, which means part of his mind must understand who she is. How is she supposed to leave here unless she takes him with her?

Garrus notices something wrong and pauses, as if detecting that this memory has been infiltrated. She does _not_ remember walking back to the skaivette with him; she is quite sure that she fell asleep and he carried her back. Garrus must have generated a permutation of this memory to adjust for her presence.

Garrus’ memory is nearly eidetic, so he will notice a discrepancy like this and attempt to parse whichever one is real. At the very least she is happy that he is reliving a happy memory of his despite his state; she hopes to capitalize on his mood to take him away from here. She just needs to nudge his mind into diverging from playing back a memory to processing input directly. She hopes that once he understands the difference between the projection and the real thing, that he will gain the lucidity to follow her up.

“Garrus,” she tries. He looks at her, confused, and she can hear him chirp _what is going on?_ His voice sounds like it did several sections ago and _not_ as he did when he was this young. His mind is now totally in control of reality as it breaks away from the real memory and directs this dream.

“Garrus do you sometimes feel like… have you ever been so tired that you fall asleep and you don’t realize you’re dreaming?”

“We were just talking about the dynamics of heavy-lift mass field repulsors and now you’re getting all existential on me?” his mandibles flick into a small grin, _why do you ask?_

 _Trust me,_ “Do you trust me?”

His mandibles return to his jaw and she can see him staring at her critically. The image of him has shifted to his older self, but his gaze has always exuded such pressure.

 _I trust you,_ “I don’t understand. What’s going on right now?” _but I’m confused,_ he glances around to the environment around them. His eyes go wide when he finds her again. Lia looks down and finds three fingers where there used to be five. Lanaai reaches out to touch him. He swallows and vibrates nervously.

 _Trust me, aivo,_ “Some dream, huh?”

 _Spirits,_ “I…” his face goes through several expressions including recognition, confusion, and fear.

 _Come back to me,_ “I need you to come back with me, Garrus. I miss you.”

“Where?” _I trust you,_ “Where are we going to go?”

“I’m hoping I can show you. We’re lost right now and I’m trying to help you come home,” _it’s difficult to know how._ She raises herself onto the tips of her toes so she can bring her crown to his, and hopes that this will force the final stages of recognition into him. He knows her touch, so this tactic is all she has left. She pulls him down to meet her and presses her forehead into his, watching as the semi-arid landscape around them begins to vanish. She does not feel what she expected she would, but then again this is far from reality.

 _I’m trying,_ he keens and tightens his hold on her.

Lanaai curses when gravity suddenly inverts itself and she tumbles away from him before she can secure a handhold. She opens her eyes and finds herself staring at the ceiling of the medbay. She rights herself quickly and assesses the situation, wondering if they made any progress and also if Liara can explain the sudden rejection. The explanation makes itself awkwardly apparent: Garrus has shifted and pulled Liara into an embrace which broke her concentration and terminated the meld. Lanaai starts growling automatically upon seeing another woman in his arms like that.

She quashes the instinct and moves to help remove her friend from her lover’s arms. After some hassling, T’soni slips off the bed and back onto the floor, breathing heavily, looking apologetically in her direction.

“Did it work?” she asks Lanaai.

 _You tell me,_ “I don’t know. He was on his way… I think,” _I hope. I don’t know._

Garrus has not awoken.

Lanaai keens softly and sits back down on the floor, feeling unnervingly exhausted despite the lack of physical exertion. She failed. She cannot go back in there again. She leans her back against the console behind her and closes her eyes again, wishing she had handled it differently. She has never felt quite so hopeless before. Liara is doing her best to look in every direction except directly at her.

“Lanaai-”

 _Sorry,_ “I won’t ask you to do it again. I need some silence,” she stands up and drags herself over to Garrus, presses her forehead against his and feels no response as usual, then leaves to go sleep in his pod where his scent will hopefully calm her. She cannot stand to see him like this right now, but she will be back in the next cycle as her routine demands.

That following cycle is particularly difficult and her crew must notice, because they mostly avoid speaking to her. She is sloppy and slow while sparring and her meals taste particularly bland. She makes her rounds and runs her maintenance checks before ending up the medbay at Garrus’ side as she always does… because this is where she belongs.

She sits down and squeezes his hand, and stills when she feels pressure: he responds! She cannot quite believe it so she touches her crown to his and feels him send sparks through the point of contact. She gives him space while she uncontrollably trills and buzzes in elation, singing out her absolute love for him. Litha appears in the doorway looking panicked but halts as she witnesses the scene unfold.

Garrus’ beautiful crystal blue eyes open up and focus on hers. His subharmonics warble a bit before resolving to a steady purr.

 _Spirits hold you,_ “Welcome back Garrus,” she lowers her forehead and pauses, waiting to see if he will meet her halfway. He moves his forehead upwards to brush hers, plastering every crevice and isolated void in her mind with warmth and satisfaction. He grips her cowl to stop her from falling back while she feels the full force of his love; the pressure is almost too much and the sensation is so foreign that she has no other response than to keen. She did not quite understand how empty she was until he filled her.

He does not need to vocalize the words to tell her that he loves her with every fiber of his being. She never thought this would happen to her, especially not with the man who gave her everything; the man who defines the meaning of strength and happiness for her. She buries her face in his neck and keens.

“We did it Garrus. We stopped them,” _together,_ she finally finds her voice.

“Thank the spirits…” _I’m a bit sore,_ he looks around and down at the single bandage still remaining on his chest, “Oh no. How long has it been since… whatever happened?”

 _Don’t ask,_ “Would you believe me if I told you?” she replies, not wishing to actually tell him. He does not need to preoccupy himself with the answer. She wants to tell him now, before she has the capacity to regret it, who she really is. The lie is too painful to sustain and she can no longer hide who she once was from him – or herself – but he just awoke from a coma. But he _needs_ to know. He can handle the truth and he can handle his own response to it.

“Garrus?” he looks at her, clearly feeling her sudden apprehension. Litha turns and leaves the room, locking the door behind her to give them privacy.

 _Listen,_ “Garrus, what if I told you that we could build a trans-dimensional machine that could end a seemingly endless cycle? That we could overcome advanced multi-dimensional beings designed explicitly to commit genocide?”

He trills in confusion, _what?_ “I probably wouldn’t have believed you a few years ago… maybe with sufficient evidence. But obviously now I have no choice. We did that together.”

She continues, _follow me,_ “what if I told you that we have the technology to bring people back from the edges of existence. Back from the dead?”

He is silent, his gaze augmenting in intensity.

“What if, Garrus… I told you that consciousness is just a collapsible projection? In the absence of one mind, another can assume it,” _crazy, but true._

 _I don’t follow,_ “What are you getting at? Been reading too much sci-fi lately?” he jokes. But she can hear his throat is dry, and not because he just returned to reality, “are you concerned about indoctrination, Lanaai?” _you are you, I can tell._

“Garrus…” she looks away for a moment before turning back, struggling to keep her voice in check, _do you love me?_

 _Yesss,_ he purrs and leans forward to kiss her. Her legs almost give out again.

“Garrus, do you know who I am?” _who am I, really?_

“Is this a concussion test?” _seems plausible,_ “considering I have a bit a headache.”

“Garrus…” _please,_ she bows her head.

“You are Lanaai Acronus,” _my Spirit,_ “my closest friend, my trusted confidant. Warrior, thinker. Maybe a bit rash sometimes. Your tragedies made you stronger and gave you perspective; maybe a bit of a ‘bad turian’ like me: lives matter to you, people matter to you, bad orders will not be followed without question. You take cream with your Taetrans and you have a sweet-tooth like me. You know me,” _you really do._

She sits back. Garrus is almost incomprehensibly perfect… that opinion certainly has not changed since they met when they were very young.

“Garrus…” she begins softly, “does an identity come from memories, or from character?” _answer honestly._

“I don’t see how you can separate the two, Lanaai. But identity is not something that you decide – it’s something that you become based on how others perceive you.”

 _I am worried,_ “Well then… I’m glad you perceive me so favorably because I-I am… I am an experiment,” her mandibles clamp tightly to her face.

 _What?_ “What in spirits name does that mean?”

“I was created and provided with the memories of two dead women so that the galaxy would stand a chance against the reapers.”

“Created?” _built?_

She nods, _would I lie to you?_ she snorts at the irony of the question.

 _Never,_ he replies confidently, “I’m not entirely sure where you’re going with this, but I’ll believe you either way. Is this something I should be hearing five minutes after waking from a… bit of a long nap.”

 _No,_ she snaps her mouth shut, “You need to know. You’ll either leap out of that hospital bed to kiss me or you’ll leap out to kill me. You can handle it. Just you. I just want to be clear I am… me,” _yours,_ “Not them,” _I left them behind._

“I’m missing some context here,” _you’re being cryptic again._

“Well…” _I’m about to provide,_ “I love you, Garrus Vakarian, it’s part of who I am. No force in existence can stop it… so what if I told you we could lie under the stars and watch the starships come and go? That you would be there to guide me along a dark path to safety. 36th day of the 5th month of 2175. That you would be there to guide me through the darkest parts of my life to a better place.”

He is completely silent, stunned.

 _I returned,_ “What if I told you I made good on my word, in one form another, to find my way back to you? What if I asked you ‘how long’ Garrus?”

He says nothing as his eyes dart around her face, looking into her. She waits for something to happen, her blood starting to rush into her brain a little too enthusiastically.

“As long as you can remember? Because I have loved you for as long as _she_ can remember… and as long as _I_ can,” her vocals have mostly given out at this point. It has been a long time since she last spoke English, but even to her it sounds and feels just as she remembers.

“Lia,” _you?_ the name falls out of his mouth on a breath, “Lia?”

She shakes her head slowly.

 _Not anymore,_ “You know she was holding me down. We both know. It took giving her up to get to you. It took death and rebirth.”

“H-how…” _oh my spirits,_ he leans his head forward she accepts it by arching her neck. This is the first time she has ever seen him this way: completely vulnerable.

“W-why did you…” _oh spirits,_ he keens. She cradles his head against herself. She is prepared for anything to happen right now. She can imagine what it might feel like to feel both betrayed and elated all at once.

“I-I can’t-” _so confused, so upset, so ecstatic_

 _I’m sorry,_ “Garrus, I’ll tell you everything. I understand if you… if you never want to see me again, but I need to explain myself first. Then it’s completely up to you. But this stays between us… what I’ve done to protect you and myself. I’m not going to hide anymore, but I’m not going to change, either. I never stopped loving you, Garrus, but you’ve gone through hell… it’s your choice,” _I will love you either way._

He lays back in his bed and adjusts his fringes. She automatically slides a pillow between the back of his head and his cowl to give him proper support. Litha makes an appearance now, entering the room carrying a duffel bag and glancing briefly over at the two of them. She addresses Lanaai directly and concisely.

“He’s clear to begin PT as of five minutes ago. You have my contact info if you need me,” _anything, my child._

Without another word or even a goodbye, she exits the medbay. Garrus stares after her, recognition flashing across his features. Somehow, seeing her here causes something to click together in his head because he leans forward again and pulls her forehead down to his, exchanging more sensations of pure ecstasy through the electrified contact of his crown.

 _I understand. I know you. I love you,_ he purrs, “It all makes sense now. I’ll give you an ear over a proper meal. I’m starving.”


	37. Chapter 37

He wakes up confused but overwhelmingly well-rested. The ache from his muscles is familiar: it is not one of pain or soreness, but fatigue from disuse. He remembers one time this occurred before, stumbling for an instant into the visions he still has seared into the back of his mind from the Obelisk. But a sweet scent and a pleasant sensation pull him back and allow him to draw focus on the blurry figure hovering above him. Lanaai materializes. This is the med bay. Not a good sign.

“Welcome back,” she sings to him and he just cannot stop himself from purring. This is, without a doubt, what he was fighting for; she is, without a doubt, who he was fighting for.

He is finally unafraid to admit, both to himself and her, that he loves her. He raises his forehead to contact hers automatically, spreading himself into her soul and feeling her return every last wave of warmth.

Lanaai slides down to her knees from her awkward, half-bent, standing position and he follows her, rolling in his bed to keep the contact. She pushes her face into the crook of his neck and keens softly.

Vulnerable.

It is as if she has been waiting for this moment all her life. This is not what he _always_ wanted, but it is what he wants _now_. She finally extricates herself from him so she can speak again. She tells him they stopped the reapers, which floods him with relief. That is one problem major problem solved, and accompanying it is the distinct sensation of finality and closure that he experiences when overcoming challenges.

He notes the bandage on his chest and the way his chest plates shine a little unnaturally, the chapters a little too perfect, a telling sign of platekits and… a master scribe. Though the replacements used on him appear to be extremely high quality and perfectly color matched, almost as if they were _regrown._ Achieving this would require the eye of a true artist and some specialized equipment that he does not see in the medbay. He inquires about this situation and she dodges, which means it must be worse than he imagined. He still does not know how long he has been asleep for, but Lanaai looks significantly worn.

“Garrus?” she grabs his attention with her voice, which has dropped its formants to become husky and almost choked. She poses a question to him which he has think about for a moment; it is a rhetorical question which describes their current situation.

_Listen,_ “Garrus, what if I told you that we could build a trans-dimensional machine that could end a seemingly endless cycle? That we could overcome advanced multi-dimensional beings designed explicitly to commit genocide?”

Either way, he responds naturally yet cautiously. Of course he would not have believed her a few years ago because it all sounds so ridiculous, and yet machinery that operates on higher dimensions is a reality and they have ended an ancient cycle of extermination. What a mess. What a science fiction novel in and of itself.

The next question she asks catches him off guard. “Back from the dead” she says. Where is she going with this? What is she really asking about? He is about to say, tentatively, that he might believe something like it were possible now, given all they have accomplished together. The questions become even more cryptic. He cracks a nervous joke, hoping she will stop whatever she is doing, but she is determined. When Lanaai Acronus is determined, nothing can stop her.

“Garrus… does an identity come from memories, or from character?” _answer honestly._

Lanaai has a fixation on consciousness and identity, and she often probes his opinion on the subject. He does his best to explain how he interprets them to her, even though now is probably not the best time for this type of conversation. Lanaai is clearly building up to some revelation by leading him there with her, but he cannot predict what that will be.

“I was created and provided with the memories of two dead women so that the galaxy would stand a chance against the reapers,” she explains, looking away nervously.

He would not have believed her several years ago, but as he just said, the rules he accepted about reality have been broken several times. After spending so much time around her, Garrus trusts in her intelligence and he knows that she would never lie to him. If she is really telling the truth, then she is a miracle of modern science in the same way that _Apophis_ is. Whichever Blackwatch project that funded her “creation” was a gamble that paid off. If they could defeat the reapers – a proverbial representation of the death of sapience – then surely they could overcome death as well.

Two dead women… he puzzles over why they would have given her _two_ sets of memories unless…

She _cannot_ be about to tell him that she has _Lia’s_ memories. If she does, then what would that make her? _Who_ would that make her? She just posed a question about identity and memory to him and he told her they were inseparable, but that is simply his opinion. Would he still love her if she had the memories of _his Lia?_

“I just want to be clear I am… me,” _yours,_ “Not them,” _I left them behind,_ she bows her head.

Garrus fell in love with Lanaai after experiencing the happiness and strength in her heart; the happiness and strength that Lia never found despite trying so hard to pursue it. He is jumping to conclusions; she has not proven to him that she has Lia’s memories, but she is the only one in the galaxy it would make sense to bring back for this war. Acronus spoke of her colony upbringing and the deaths of her parents – he would have noticed if she was lying about this.

Perhaps he expected her to recite the details of a memory so personal, that there is no possible way to deny the truth in her assertions that she was brought back from the dead. He has to repeat her words over and over in his mind just to understand them. No one in the universe, given any length of time or any form of omniscience, could possibly discover this memory.

He is not afraid of uncertainty and evidence, but he is absolutely certain that the only two people in existence who share the memory are himself, and a dead woman. She tells him she has made good on her word to come back to him, reciting words that still haunt him to this very day.

What if she asks him “how long?”

And she does, reading his mind like a message. Back from the dead. Consciousness is collapsible. The odd sense of familiarity… with her scent, her voice, her movements. With her. How easy it was to fall in love with her… _again_. And yet, how different she is now renders her not _his Lia,_ but rather the image of who she needed to be. Lanaai Acronus is _not_ the woman who whispered a promise to him with her last breaths. Memories and personality – Lanaai has one and pieces of the other.

There is no other conclusion he can draw: she is telling the truth. He decides to push a word out of his mouth just to taste it; perhaps it will help him think.

“Lia.” And then again, several seconds later, but this time as a question addressed to the female turian he has always known as Lanaai Acronus. She shakes her head, understanding the name but pushing it away, in the same way he has to.

_Not anymore,_ “You know she was holding me down. We both know. It took giving her up to get to you. It took death and rebirth.”

He nearly starts babbling as every emotion he stowed away comes hurdling up his throat. Is his happy? Is he furious? He is about to ask her why she never said anything but then remembers what he said not even sixty seconds prior: _I probably wouldn’t have believed you a few years ago_.

A turian claiming to have the memories of _his Lia?_ Such a notion is purely insane. However, all that effort and work to convince their peers of the reapers, an idea equally as outlandish, forces empathy from him. His voice is breaking. She is real; he can reconcile all of his confusion regarding her with the simple assumption that she is the woman that Lia Shepard _needed_ to be. Lanaai is nothing like his Lia, but that is okay. He is so happy that she lives the opportunity to be free of her cage. She is Lanaai, and he knows her.

He absorbs her presence for a moment while she lends him the strength and happiness that she exudes in vast quantities. Her disclaimer is nonsense and she probably expects him to be furious with her for lying to him, but he understands perfectly why she did it. He knows how she thinks. She protected them all by choosing to conceal herself. Despite revealing that she has memories from his Lia, he finds it easy to overlook as so much of his understanding of her comes from memories that they created together. She did not need to tell him because who she _was_ is largely irrelevant _now,_ but if they are going to spend the rest of their lives entwined, she might let something slip from another life.

Two dead women. He needs to ask about that.

She is still perfect, and even with her disguise and her mystery she earned his mind and his heart, and he fell in love with her. He does not have the right to leave her now. After a lifetime of making awkward jokes about how she wished she were turian and seeing the longing in her eyes, he can tell this _is_ what she wanted.

But… who in the their right fucking mind _did_ this to her? She did not _ask_ to be brought back. Unless there was some part of her last will and testament that he did not read, then her DNR was totally violated. Did Command seriously authorize this insanity by desecrating the memory of a woman – two women apparently – who went with the spirits? He wants to remain happy for Lanaai, but his mind quickly clouds with the _disgust_ at the notion that her existence is someone’s _investment._

The obscure “political figure” he remembers exfiltrating several years prior makes an appearance in the doorway, scanning over their compromising poses with an intense gaze. It takes little effort to realize that she is, without question, involved with Lia’s reconstruction. It makes the reality of this whole situation even clearer, and now he has a target.

After the mysterious woman leaves and Lanaai returns with a tray of food, he reflects. The memory that broke him free is very dear to him and one of his clearest, but he notices that there are two fragments to it: one real and the other fake. It does not take very long for him to separate the two and realize where Lanaai had somehow joined him in an attempt to pull him from his comatose state.

“It was you,” _you were there,_ he speaks, _you pulled me out._

Lanaai eventually realizes what he is referring to and nods slowly.

_I did my best,_ “I didn’t chose that memory, you did. But it was the best I could do. You can thank Liara… I have to thank her,” _I owe her._

The fact that she could access that memory of his is just more proof that she has Lia’s memories. After he woke from his first coma he and Liara discussed melds as a tool for jump-starting mental activity. She explained that only close friends or mates can pull off such a feat because only shared memories are accessible by both individuals. His mind brought her into an intimate memory, and she was able to participate because her mind could parse it.

“Isn’t that a bit… risky?” _even by your standards,_ he jabs again, hoping to lighten the air between them.

“I missed you. I…” _need you,_ her mandibles droop.

_Alright, I am yours,_ “I am here,” he pushes his tray aside and holds her.

He has questions for her, obviously, but she wants to focus more on getting him up and about for physical therapy. Octavian still has not provided him with a medical report on how much damage he sustained or for how long he has been asleep. This seems like a breach of standard medical procedure, but Octavian says the same thing that Lanaai does: Garrus needs to focus on his recovery more than he should focus on the time he lost.

In the cycle immediately following his return, Liara is the first to visit him and she is ecstatic that he awoke.

“Garrus!” she gasps and rushes to his bedside, “she told me you woke up and I almost didn’t believe her.”

“Lanaai?” _my spirit?_

“Yes. She was crushed yesterday when we… when she failed to raise you,” Liara frowns.

“Seems like it worked,” _she succeeded._

“We didn’t know if we made a difference. Lanaai is very taken with you, Garrus.”

“I gathered,” _I love her,_ he mumbles in reply, “so anyway, she hasn’t filled me in on what happened while I was out, other than that we stopped the reapers.”

T’soni’s smile falls into a carefully-neutral expression, “I won’t tell you if she won’t. You need to focus on getting better, not diving directly back into the fire.”

“That’s my job,” _that I dedicated a life to,_ he scowls at her.

“You were working yourself to death, Garrus. If you can stop me from leaving the room then I’ll tell you,” she jabs and steps back, out of his reach. He groans as he sits up and his muscles protest.

“Garrus, stop,” she huffs.

“I’m determined,” _I’ll stand,_ he growls.

“Garrus… I’m going to go get Lanaai. I’m happy that you’re already up, but I don’t want to tussle with your stubbornness.”

“Spirits,” _you’re easy,_ he laughs at how flustered she is becoming. She leaves and Lanaai enters the room several moments later, as if she was already on her way. She smiles at him, and he has already forgotten that she was _built._ Perhaps he always knew, and the reason why he is coping with it so well is because he accepted it when he gave up Lia’s ghost.

“I heard you were about to break out so I thought I’d come in here and help you,” _support you,_ she grins at him.

_Snitch,_ “for an information broker, Liara sure likes telling everyone everything all the time.”

“Well… I think you make her nervous,” _you do._

_I do,_ “Unfortunate. Please-”

_Let me,_ she is at his side in an instant, pushing one arm behind his back and grabbing his keel with the other. Garrus pushes the covers away from his legs and swings them over the side of the bed. Lanaai keeps her eyes glued to his legs and waist, vigilant, prepared to steady him at a moment’s notice.

_With me,_ “On your feet, soldier,” she speaks softly. His feet touch the floor and his legs wobble about clumsily.

_Spirits,_ he grunts as the sensation of static erupts through his feet. Lanaai holds his chest and eases some of his body weight off his legs.

“This is ridiculous,” he growls. He half expects her to mock his lack of grace in her usual teasing manner, but she simply holds onto him.

“One foot before the other,” _I’ve got you,_ she looks up at him with a serious expression. He grits his teeth and forces his legs to stop shaking while she removes her hands from him. She takes one step back from him and he concentrates on forcing his body to cooperate with him. This lack of control is mostly in his head, because his muscles should be adequately strong to allow him to walk, unless he was in a coma for several sections. They are still on the _Indictor,_ and Mordin and T’soni are still here, so he assumes that it has not been that long. He clears his head and focuses on the door.

He shifts one foot forwards and his leg stiffens, compromising his balance. Lanaai grabs him before he can topple over and rights him. He is beyond grateful that she is tolerating his weakness right now.

_That’s it,_ Lanaai purrs, _with me._

He takes another step and wobbles before regaining balance again. Lanaai produces more subharmonic encouragement as his resolve begins to strengthen and the pins begin to leave his legs already. His Lanaai is right there with him to keep him on his feet if his balance wanes. Something must have damaged his orientation sensors because this is much worse than ordinary disuse fatigue. He wants information regarding the extent of the damage, but so far no one will tell him. He does not blame Lanaai for withholding it, but it does irritate him to be so unaware of the condition of his own body.

Lanaai joins him again as he progresses towards the door to the medbay and places her arm around his waist. He finds it much easier to waddle his way across the floor with her assistance. She quickly diverts him away from their path and towards one of the medbay annexes.

_Wait,_ “I thought we were escaping,” he rumbles, still irritable that he cannot walk properly.

_We are,_ “Can’t escape if you smell,” she says simply as they continue slowly towards the annex.

Eventually the reach the small washroom and she help him into the shower while she removes her own armor and peels her compression suit away. She is just as beautiful as ever, even if the signs of exhaustion and unresolved tension are obvious. He would love to help her, but he does not have the strength yet. She starts the steam vents and opens the drain while he stands there trying not to collapse.

_You holding up?_ she chirps to him.

_For now,_ he murmurs through clenched mandibles.

Lanaai takes his waist with one arm while she coats her free hand with a pleasant-smelling washing grit.

_I’m not an invalid,_ “You know I can wash myself,” he chuffs, half-amused and half-bothered. Lanaai glares at him, her expression still totally serious.

_I must take care of,_ “I know,” _my mate._

She is not in the mood for jabs or jokes, which is unusual for her, so he quiets down. She has gone for some time without him. Her instinct to ensure that her mate is properly taken care of has all but entirely seized her now. His injuries must have been very serious and taken quite some time to resolve if she is this starved of her instincts. If she has not taken suppressants then he guesses one or two sections have elapsed… however he does not know if her engineered body has “advantages” over instinct.

He shuts his mind off while he allows his mate to indulge in her urges and dote on him. She works her way around his plates and makes sure there are traces of grime left over in the gaps between his plates. She runs her hands over the plates the right of his chest where he notices the difference in sheen. Her touch does feel slightly different here than what he remembers.

She dries the extra moisture from the steam and then helps him into a compression suit before helping him limp from the shower stall. Octavian has returned to the medbay and looks up when they enter the main room.

_Sore? Painkillers needed?_ “How are you feeling, Commander?” Octavian asks.

_I’ll get there,_ “A bit tight, a bit sore. Something’s messing with my sense of balance.”

Octavian frowns and begins a scan with his omni-tool. He hums in concern.

_Need to adjust,_ “we noted that you might experience a slight unbalance. Your PT routine has been designed to help it recover quickly. Meanwhile I’ll prescribe you some _midrizol_ to help speed that up. Disuse fatigue should ease up in one or two cycles; speed and coordination will take longer. Knowing your determination you’ll be back to where you were in a couple of periods. And another thing,” _listen,_ “I realize you two are close, but he needs about three periods of recovery time,” _before you can rut._

Octavian ignores their discomfort – he is probably used to breaking this news to people.

“You have ambulatory freedom as of right now,” _but don’t go running about,_ Octavian, “Keep an eye on him, Captain. I wish you a swift recovery,” _both of you. Spirits guide you._

_And also you,_ Lanaai and Garrus chirp in unison. She walks slowly with him down the halls to her nesting pod where the familiar scent of her begins to work its magic on his plates. He hates feeling so useless, and he still does not have access to an omni-tool.

_Promise me,_ “Garrus,” Lanaai wriggles her way into his arms, “I know you just woke up and I just revealed my secrets to you… I haven’t had a good sleep in… quite some time. We both need _real_ rest. Tomorrow I’ll give you the gruesome details, pardon me if I have nightmares”, _I was so scared._

So it must have been _way worse_ than he thought.

_I promise,_ “I will, Lanaai.”

Despite believing that her body was fabricated and her memories are grafted from a woman he knew so well, he almost cannot believe just how long he has been comatose. _Three sections._ That certainly explains the fatigue. Lanaai is understandably hesitant to review the images taken of his body during initial examination. She buries her face into his neck while he looks through them, shocked that so much damage was repaired.

Lanaai must have called that Litha figure… that ambivalent spirit must have been here for _him…_ Once again, he cannot tell whether he wants to kill Litha or worship her, and he supposes that Lanaai feels the same. Lanaai made the right call, then. The damage was so overwhelming that he might not have been able to live with his own appearance. He is not afraid to admit that self-image matters, and that waking up to see a disfigured mess in the mirror would weigh on his conscience.

Lanaai hides him away in her personal workspace with her and brings him new gear so he can begin to get back into his life. She has the datapad awkwardly propped up on her leg and mostly uses her left hand to provide inputs.

_Seems uncomfortable,_ he chirps, “You have another perfectly good hand, Lanaai. Something wrong?”

Without saying a word she looks up with a forlorn expression and slides her right hand into his, squeezing it gently. She returns her attention back to her datapad. It takes him a moment to realize that she has become so used to holding his hand over the course of three sections, that she has altered the way she uses her omni-tool and datapad in reaction to it. His throat dries out and he swallows. Surely he does not deserve her.

Ash figures out that he escaped the medbay and sends him a very CAPITALIZED message on his omni-tool asking where he is. He sighs.

_I’ll be back,_ “I’m going to talk with Ash. I’ll return shortly,” he nods to Lanaai, who rumbles in acknowledgment.

_Don’t be too long,_ “Don’t stay out all night. Don’t drink too much.”

He snorts and hobbles out into the halls to go meet up with Ash.

“How the hell did no one tell me you woke up?” she all but yells at him when he enters her personal workspace nearby her and Kryik’s quarters.

_Wish I could answer,_ “Not up to me. They took my visor and they took my omni-tool.”

“Yeah… you were pretty chewed up. They would have gotten in the way.”

“I saw,” _I was,_ he nods.

“Luckily for everyone you’re impossible to kill, so welcome back to the land of the living, Garrus. I’m glad you’re still with us soldier. Boy, you sure cleaned up nicely after that- it was pretty bad,” she grins. He grins back.

“We were about to end a several-million-year-long cycle; I couldn’t just give up,” _she needs me._

Ash cocks her head at him, having heard his subharmonics, “Also congrats on your… woman, I guess.”

_Was it that obvious,_ “How did you find out?” he drawls.

Ash snorts, “It wasn’t really challenging before, but in the time you were out it was _really_ obvious.”

“Thanks for approving of my choice of…”

“Mate?” Ash completes for him.

“Yeah…” _wow,_ it sounds way different when he hears her say it, “But not officially,” _but soon._

Several cycles show major improvements in his ability to control his limbs. His sense of balance is still catching up.

_Spirits guide her,_ “Every cycle, Garrus,” Sidonis tells him as he spots him on the mats. Garrus works through forms slowly, fighting to win back control, “she was in there every cycle, without fail, for several hours at least,” _always._

Warmth blooms in his chest. His mate is truly amazing.

“Why are you telling me this?” _what do you imply?_ he asks.

_You tell me,_ “I’ve never seen that kind of devotion before. I think it is impressive, especially because she managed the fleet while doing it. I admire her for it. Now focus.”

Sidonis did not answer Garrus’ question with his statement. Perhaps it was roundabout way of blessing their obvious relationship. Hearing it from Ash and again from Sidonis simply makes the reality of his connection to her tangible. The last time he went critical she was there to pull him out… because she is always there for him, regardless of form and regardless of identity.

“Altay,” _tell me,_ another question fights its way up that he was afraid to ask Lanaai directly, “did our squad make it?”

Sidonis’ hesitant silence is enough to answer the question.

_Spirits hold them,_ “They were killed extracting critical leadership. Our Primarch has publicly thanked them, but we should hold our own vigil,” _because we know them._

Garrus nods and produces a forlorn hum from his chest. He spends the remainder of the cycle planning a short service with the few resources they have. Everyone on their ship lost someone, and according to his officers they have been holding individual vigils at random. He wants to give them something more: a communal ship-wide vigil. They have the resources to handle it, but only this once. He pulls together a makeshift committee and work through the logistics.

He just barely remembers Lanaai crawling into his nest halfway through his extended rest cycle but she is still there when he wakes up, sleeping soundly. As his memory returns he can recall the bitter taste and sour scent of sadness. She must have been looking at the numbers again, or perhaps she received some particularly depressing report. He cannot move his head to look down at her without upsetting her position, so he just closes his eyes and soaks in the warmth. His plates are soft and relaxed, and her heart is beating close to his.

Garrus is up on his feet again and slowly working through his routines between catching on everything he missed while incapacitated. He has managed to insert himself into several planning sessions and major projects, all of which need the extra hands. It feels good have something to do.

He announces the vigil to the crew who gather in the shuttle bay to share silence and mark the walls with the names of those who they lost. Many humans join in with the ceremony respectfully, writing down names and keeping quiet. Garrus spots several couples here supporting their mates and partners. A single mixed pair – a turian θ and a human female – stands near the doorway. Ash and Kryik must have given the crew some inspiration. They finish off the cycle with a single round of their closest approximation to the traditional sweetened alcohol consumed at a vigil. Slowly the silence breaks as the crowd begins speaking to one another and remembering their lost ones. The morale aboard the _Indictor_ significantly improves following this event.

He works frequently with Ash and Liara on gathering and organizing information. He does not enjoy it, but he understands it must be completed to aid with the recovery. The war-torn galaxy needs organization right now, not innovation. There will time ample time to relax and enjoy themselves once they power through this phase of uncertainty. Lanaai finds him as he is leaving from his exercises to go eat. She presses a nutrient purée and protein bar into his hands without looking up from her omni-tool, as if acting reflexively.

He knows that he lacks some information about Lanaai’s tier and rank because the report she obtains about his family – particularly his father – comes from so far up the line it might as well be directly from the Primarch’s hands. It seems to be more information than he has a right to access, and it breaks his carefully self-maintained ignorance with regards to his parents’ occupations within the hierarchy.

His father is a “diplomat” in the way that Litha is a diplomat: a class ω-exempt individual in Special Forces command with ties into the Primarch’s Tier Zero advisors and Aegis’ Primarch. Garrus did not know what Aegis had a Primarch to begin with. His mother is class λ on contract for three of Hierarchy’s most important military starship manufacturers, including Aurer.

His poor sister is now a class λ – thank the spirits – working on a research platform at coordinates which appear to be literally in the middle of nowhere. Either way, he is vastly relieved to see that they are all still alive and working tirelessly to return the galaxy to the tentative peace they maintained before.

In this post-war galaxy, however, every sentiment is fragile. Not long after he reads the report, he learns his mother has early symptoms of Corpalis. They were always concerned about it because it has a genetic presence on her side of the family. In general, it seems the turians from the archipelago have a greater chance of Corpalis than mainlanders or northerners, but they always hoped that she would be spared.

It is a crushing blow, as Marek’s admission was, and for the first time in his life he does not even bother to muscle his way through his distress by himself. He has Lanaai now and he intends to accept the offerings of comfort and strength that she always makes readily available. He is itching for a rut but he is still in his recovery phase. Instead, he seeks her out towards the end of his work cycle and joins her in her private quarters, where she is preparing to start an early sleep cycle. Considering the unfortunate news came from her, she knows exactly why he arrived. She stands up helps him out of his armor silently, then guides him to her nest and hums as she kneads his plates and skin.

* * *

Lanaai does her best to defer his questions about her reconstruction until later, because she finds it rather irrelevant at the moment. She promises him she will discuss it at some point, despite the fact that there are very few actual details she can share that are not completely obvious at this point. Now that he is awake and moving around she figures out how to make even more excuses to be around him. The turian and human crew here have plenty of competent leadership to pick up slack, so she does not regret shortening her work hours. As far as she is concerned, rehabilitating her mate is an important endeavor and his presence in the post-war logistics will help everyone.

Massive registers of body counts begin to roll in and clarify as they gather more data from the ground. Her mother has been missing for so long that her status formally switches to “deceased.” There are no living Shepards left at this point.

It stings and it hurts, and now that she has no reason to restrain herself, she goes to Garrus for comfort. She finds him in his nest making use of the extra hours in his rest cycle, curled up comfortably. She strips off her armor and undersuit down to her waist wrap and slips into his arms. He wakes briefly with a questioning trill before settling back into a soft rumble.

_You are safe with me_ , he intones in his rolling purr. She keens quietly and his arms wrap around her tighter, _You are free to grieve. We will share this burden._

Lanaai has someone at Command do her a favor, because the galaxy owes her, and provide her with an expedited status update on Garrus’ immediate family members. She hopes with all of her heart that they pulled through, but expects the worst. Bridge had astronomically low survival rates and most major cities on Palaven were similar.

The war clawed and tore its way through all of their lives by killing people in the distance. She was allowed to sit here and preside over them because she works diligently and produces results, but she knows what it must have felt like to watch friends and family annihilated on the ground in the futile efforts to suppress the invasions.

Her inbox is constantly inundated with updates and requests, but she manages to catch the response to the message she sent out asking for information. Relief sweeps over her as she reads its contents: just a simple list of statuses. Tier, classification, role, location etc…

“Garrus I have a diamond for you,” _I’m happy to say,_ she says while they walk to the mess slowly. She stays close in case he needs to lean on her for any reason, although these days Garrus’ strength is returning rapidly.

_Good to hear,_ “Go for it,” he replies. She can be freer with the “lingo,” so to speak, now that he knows not to question her inside phrasing and word choice. She is still immeasurably grateful that Garrus sees her for who is _now,_ rather than who she was.

“Take a look. Hopefully it makes you as happy as it makes me,” _I know it will,_ she drops the file onto his omni-tool for his inspection. His eyes graze over the contents through the visor and he stops walking. He chirps happily, and breathes out profoundly.

“How did you get this?” _please?_

“I asked,” _I ordered, they provided,_ she simply replies. He purrs and bumps his forehead into hers.

“Thank you, Lanaai. It means a lot. I’m glad they’re safe.”

“Me too,” that’s when his expression turns dark and he follows up with a question of his own.

“But what about… what about…” he pauses, “Jess?” he finishes in a hushed tone. She can only frown and shake her head in response.

“No one knows. She disappeared several years ago,” _I’m so worried,_ she says, because it is the truth. Maybe, if they are lucky, they never will.

Lanaai is not surprised that Garrus’ entire family is full of incredibly intelligent individuals, but she is surprised that Castis is class ω-exempt. Class ω’s, like herself and Garrus, are locked away from the rest of society and relegated to the command and heavy observation of Special Forces. Individuals with direct ties to Aegis are even more secure, so how Castis was able to meet, court, and then create a stable family with a “normal” turian is beyond her. “Exempt” may have something to do with it, but earning that exemption seems impossible. She has no idea what the criteria are to qualify for exemption.

“Normal” is relative, of course, because Avita is class λ herself. She wonders if Avita even knows about her mate’s class and ties to Aegis, not that it matters. As long as they are together, which is likely given their operational coordinates are identical, all will be well. They are lucky to have themselves and their children. She is tempted to inquire into the details of Castis’ work right now, but she refrains as it is irrelevant to hers. Garrus’ relief spills over when he finds out.

She considers for a long time whether or not to send Garrus the update about his mother’s diagnosis, but she finally decides to. He deserves to know as soon as possible in case he wants to attempt to see her. And if he decides he wants to, she will do everything in her power to grant him that opportunity.

He arrives to her quarters unannounced as she is getting ready to sleep, and she can easily spot the signs of anguish. He looked this way when Marek first informed them of his diagnosis. Her mate requires consolation. Lanaai helps him out of his armor and then applies her fingers to his plates and muscles, releasing the tension. The path ahead is still quite long.

What she does not tell him yet, however, is that Litha would be able to treat his mother and cure her. Lanaai’s construction brought them very close to developing cures for several neurological degeneracies including Corpalis, Korvan’s, and Ceverellum. The progress was intruded upon by the war, and Litha wants to be able to return to her work. Lanaai is not certain she wants to see Litha ever again, and she thinks that Garrus would probably want to kill her for playing with life in such a seemingly-apathetic manner, but he might consider it if it meant his mother had a chance. Litha does not have evil intentions; they simply manifest in a way that the rest of the galaxy has decided is unethical. Litha would not risk a life if she was not confident she could save it. Her fear of pain and death is deeply-rooted, and her entire existence now is based around avoiding confronting that fear.

Garrus needs more time to adjust.

* * *

Garrus’ relationship with Lanaai is no longer a secret so he no longer bothers to wash himself of her scent and makes less of an effort to keep himself guarded in her presence when off duty. Until now he has been dutifully waiting for medical clearance to finally indulge in all of her, because he understands the consequences of ignoring medical orders, but it is proving to be an exercise in self-discipline and restraint. Lanaai keeps to herself as well to make it easier for him to restrain himself, but they are both aching.

Octavian clears Garrus for full operational responsibility early the following section which leaves one thing on his mind: rut and relief. His limitless need is curbed by the notion that he has no idea what is going to happen now that he and Lanaai are careening towards the final stages of bonding.

He is distracted for the rest of the cycle, and does everything in his power to avoid an encounter with Lanaai for their own good. There is still work to do, and until they are officially off duty, they must make themselves available to handle requests and provide assistance to anyone who needs it. But when the cycle comes to a close he practically sprints to Lanaai’s private workspace. His body is crying out for relief and for her.

The doors welcome him and his plates open immediately upon inhaling her scent. Lanaai locks her gaze to his, sets down her datapad, and clears the space between them in several strides.

_Not here,_ she growls at him.

She yanks him down the hall to her quarters, throws him inside her nesting pod as if he weighs nothing, and then seals the door. He struggles to contain himself after that little display of dominance as she holds him down to tear away his compression suit. She allows him to pull her down and work her out of hers.

He gulps down a breath and his subharmonics skitter when he notices that her guardplates are already wide open, pulling the opening of her sheath apart in preparation for him. The lips of her entrance are swollen from disuse. Her beautiful and pliant unarmored form hoists itself onto his and brings their crests together. Garrus’ plates turn numb from the complete inundation of her unhinged desire to be taken.

This is unexplored territory for him because this is not just a relief rut. It might certainly begin as such, but spirits know where they will end up. He cannot just grab her waist and hammer her into the padding as he is used to because they both need time to readjust. He nips at her mandibles and her neck as he aligns himself for entrance. His guideplates twitch and find her sheath, guiding his tail inside. She gasps and pulls his forehead to his. He pushes, his platelets flaring, and her body does not stop him.

One of her hands is on her abdomen, feeling the distention as he goes deeper. Her tail struggles, but eventually coils around his and becomes tangled on the extended platelets. She wears an expression of pure bliss on her face as she drops away from him and lies back on the padding. He applies pressure to her narrow waist, feeling it on his member through her skin.

Neither of them move for a moment while they are perfectly entwined like this; definitely a new sensation for the both of them. But soon enough she releases the pressure and his platelets cooperate enough for him to start moving his hips, slowly at first, to allow her to feel the entire length of him graze her sensitive nerves.

He feels his strength returning to him so he flips her over and shifts to his knees. He snaps his hips forward while flaring wide. Her neck flashes before him and he leans forward to lave it with his tongue and nip with his teeth as he continues to move both his hips and his tail. The slightest indications of satiation begin to prickle at the back of his throat, but he knows they are far from finished.

He sits back and twists her to the side so he can hoist her knee up to his shoulder and push deeper. She cries out. His platelets must be perfectly aligned with the more sensitive strips of nerve bundles. Lanaai’s subharmonics are pleading with him while he holds her hips away from his own, so obliges and surges forward.

When he catches her eyes, her pupils have mostly obscured the irises and her sclera are flushed. Her scent is intoxicating and washes away the world around him, allowing him to become almost literally “lost” in her. He increases the intensity of his movements, not only to drink in his own satisfaction, but to supply hers as well. Even though he has the dominant position, his body is completely under her control. He can read exactly what she wants and provide it eagerly.

Once the energy dies down, she takes the upper position and rides him out slowly. These movements lack the intensity, but have increased in their potency. Lanaai is methodical and deliberate, squeezing and gripping him in waves, savoring the connection to its last remaining drops. It strikes him just how beautiful she really is. Her sculpted and artistic form, delicate and perfectly-proportioned rather than overbearing exaggerated as most turians seem to prefer, makes her truly the most beautiful turian he has ever laid eyes up on.

He only realizes he has marked her when he tastes something sweet on his tongue. He removes his teeth from her neck and laves over the punctures to seal them and to prevent them from fully healing over. If there was any reservation before about rushing into a relationship, then he can certainly bid farewell to it. She is his now, and in return, he will be hers. He tilts his head and pulls the skin of his neck taught to make it easier for her to break through. He purrs as she returns the favor. The circle is complete.

She folds forward and brings her head to the crook of his neck. All of their plates are completely pliant now and she sinks right down to his bones. He encircles her with his arms and holds her there while she nuzzles his neck where she marked him. They breath slowly and purr with pure contentment. He slips his fingers between those fringes that drive him crazy and strokes them lightly. Even though they have both found their welcomed relief she does not let him go. She keeps her tail tightly wound around his, tangled in the platelets, while she rhythmically and very slowly contracts her sheath. It feels delightful so he allows himself to relax.

His member responds to her as he relinquishes control and flares slowly to match. Lanaai’s breathing slows down and her arms loosen ever so slightly. Her purr deepens into the steady-state rumble of slumber. Still, her guardplates remain clamped tightly around his tail, keeping him from pulling free. The intimacy of it is surreal. He follows her to into the void of sleep.

He is still inside her when they wake up four hours later, and within seconds his tail coats itself with lubricant once again. He does not even bother to release himself as he climbs from the pod with her still attached and walks three strides over to the shower. She has the luxury of having access to a water shower rather than a sonic and steam one, courtesy of the various provisions made for the hybrid crew, so he plans to indulge just this once. They are both of northern descent, so their plates are naturally conditioned to handle water and damp environments without trouble.

He takes his hands off her to fiddle with the shower controls, leaving her suspended by his tail only for a moment. She moans softly and squeezes him again. She shifts her legs a bit and braces her forearms against the metal shower walls while he suspends her. Finally, she disengages herself from him and he draws his tail out of her. She verbally protests the loss, but her body readily gives him up. He begins to scrub her back and any other difficult-to-reach crevices in her plates. Garrus purrs while she does the same for him. She speaks once they are both fully clad in armor once more.

* * *

Her fringes prickle and raise and she puts down her reports for a moment to breathe and look around. Litha’s “provisions” wore off several periods ago and Garrus’ scent has increased exponentially in its strength and saccharinity to the point where it hurts to restrain herself.

It really feels terrible to have her dignity and humility so thoroughly violated and she will be nothing more than animal when he has finally cleared his PT and returns to active service. She also feels anxious because she knows her body will respond differently now that they are tying. She wonders – hopes even – that he will mark her. Her abdominal plates quiver in anticipation as she imagines it.

Lanaai has trouble accomplishing work today and impatiently waits for the cycle to close so she can find Garrus have him rail her until she can finally think straight again. She huffs in frustration and decides to get out of her armor now so she will not feel so constricted. She returns to the datapad and attempts to complete her task list for the next cycle in the remaining minutes of the current one.

Garrus arrives early, wearing just his compression suit. The doors open and he steps into her quarters with his fringe flushed and his pupils dilated. His subharmonics are jittery and dripping with need. Her control spirals into the void as she drops the datapad and drags him down the hall to her quarters. Her strides are uncomfortable as her guardplates have spread themselves wide into her legs in anticipation of him. His touch and his scent are relief all by themselves, and the incredible strength of his response to her is overwhelming. She throws him into her pod and pushes him down so she can get to the zippers on the back of his compression suit. Once bared, Garrus picks her back up and his subharmonics shift.

She is not sure what to do with herself because Garrus always leads during their ruts, although this cannot be considered a rut. He still leads, but his movements are not frantic and dominating. Her subharmonics skitter as he nips her neck and his irresistibly smooth abdominal plates brush against hers. She welcomes him and he begins to stretch and fill her, the platelets on his tail raking against the rings of sensitive nerves inside her sheath.

Ordinarily her body tenses up and stops him from plunging deeper, but she is relaxed-enough now to allow him much farther inside. Her _cilix_ parts as he descends even farther into her warm, moist, depths. Her fingers grope the slight protrusion through her abdomen as it makes its way higher. Her tail wraps and tightens around his reflexively and halts his movement when he reaches the sealed entrance to her womb. Neither of them move, and for a while she feels like she is floating through space, weightless. She falls back to the padding and just gives way to the unadulterated and undignified moan of pleasure that has now been nearly twenty four years in the making, two times over.

Garrus withdraws almost all the way to her guards, rises to his knees, and hilts himself once again. The sudden change in angle and added contact blasts her nervous system with input, forcing a quite undignified and humiliatingly-uncontrolled cry up her throat. He does not give her any warning before he turns her into a creature of instinct, and does exactly as her body so desperately needs. She can barely concentrate as his vigor increases and his platelets scrape against more of her nerve bundles than before.

She needs more, and spirits does he deliver. There is such a strength behind each thrust that her entire body resonates. Her vision blurs when his plates slam into hers, and she has to increase her grip on him to stay connected. Her talons find little purchase against plates, but there is enough friction to hold her steady. Her head draws back when his talons slip under her fringes and massage her scalp, leaving her neck exposed for him to taste and nip.

For a moment they turn to rutting. Garrus whirls her around and pins her to the padding, and she allows herself to be taken from the rear just to add some mileage. His palm pushes against the back of her head and his fingers thread through her fringes, occasionally pulling. He really seems to enjoy her fringes. Eventually, however, she finds herself straddling his waist, looking down on him. His hands move slowly over the undulating protrusion on her abdomen as she envelops him.

This is, without question, exactly what she always wanted – what both of the ghosts who live in her body wanted. Rutting makes her feel better, but this is so much more. The intimacy and the connection are powerful and she feels, for the first time in many years, that she is loved; that she is not alone. His love is a law of reality, and she has never felt so confident in the knowledge of anything. The warmth Garrus propagates inside her, both figuratively and now literally, is a clear indication of that. She slows down her motions so she can relish every twinge and spike of stimulation. Finally, once she is confident they are both fully relaxed she leans forward and presses herself into his embrace.

She gasps when his teeth slice into her neck cleanly and painlessly. Whatever she convinced herself about the “myths” of this moment immediately become false as she enters a state of bliss and her sheath constricts around his tail uncontrollably. Her guardplates snap shut around his tail and no matter how much she wills them apart, they disobey. She is paralyzed while he holds onto her with his mouth, wondering if there is anything greater in this galaxy.

She grunts when he releases her and laps up the rivulets of blood from the clean puncture marks. His lids are half closed and his blue eyes seem to emit their own light in razor-sharp lines where they shine through. He tilts his head back and presents his neck slowly, stretching sensuously and pulling the skin taught where she should _bite._

Her mandibles slip apart and her jaw opens while the rest of her mind stands by and watches. She sinks her teeth into the soft skin and he moans; a pure, raw sound she has never heard from him before. His platelets flare and drive shocks up her spine, forcing her jaw to crush down and force her teeth further under his skin.

Ordinarily turian blood tastes incredibly metallic and tangy, a familiar taste after a brutal round on the mats or a hand-to-hand fight with a killer. Right now, however, as his blood courses with pheromones and adrenaline, and while her perception is no more than a suggestion, his blood tastes sweet and light. She removes her teeth and cleans the wound with her tongue, still watching from the outside of her body. Garrus holds her and purrs with her while he folds his wings and they land. Three lives alone end now.

She cannot, for whatever reason, part her guardplates to allow him to leave. As much as she tries to pull them apart, the refuse to cooperate, so she just continues lying there with his tail nestled snugly within her. She is quick to fall asleep on him, reveling in his presence and overwhelmed by the relief that she needed.

Her body did not let him go while sleeping, but he feels just as comfortable. She yelps when he just stands up still buried inside her and navigates them to the shower. Finally, her tail unravels from his and lets go so they can move on with their work cycle. The loss of contact is much more unpleasant than she expected, and already she finds herself wanting him back inside her. They exchange some brief buzzes and trills in the shower as they clean and prepare for the day. He helps her burnish her fringes and touch up her face paint, an admission of love and trust that he probably feels more than she does. She speaks once they suit up.

_We simply are,_ “That was truly amazing Garrus. I struggled… I guess you probably figured it out, but you really make me feel loved and safe. I mean… you always did but I couldn’t fully appreciate it. I don’t want to drown you with my tears…” her voice thickens, _so happy,_ “but I’m so happy that you’re here with me. I’m looking forward to us.”

_You returned. We are,_ “Definitely, Lanaai. We always worked better together. I regretted letting her go, but I don’t regret finding you. Now let’s go yell at people for a living,” _as we do these days._

_I love you,_ “Sounds like my kind of party,” she smiles. He nips her mandible playfully and then follows her out.

_I love you too._


	38. Chapter 38

After marking her, he makes even less of an effort to disguise his relationship with Lanaai, especially since he wears her signature on his neck without shame. He does not go as far as touching her waist or fringes in public, but he does purr and coo when she is nearby without bothering to silence himself. The best part about all of this is just how little difference it makes to their dynamic.

They were close friends first, and now they have a few additional benefits. They built their entire relationship on the idea that they work and live together, rather than demand favors from the other, both when she was “Lia” and now that she is “Lanaai.” He could spend the rest of his days with her and they would both find their own paths. Despite the fact that they flow on different planes, they are parallel; he is still close enough to step into hers and hold her if she needs it. This is the best decision he has ever made.

He takes a seat on the couch nearby and releases the tension in his back. The cycle is nearly through and he will keep her company while they finish up their tasks. He brought up some _ioro_ because he did not see her at Third, and he knows she is hungry. She is hungry most of the time and does not eat enough, so he brings her snacks and meals in an effort to force more energy into her system. She has always been like this, even when they were very young.

He takes his place nearby and quietly opens his omni-tool to check over his messages and handle any last-minute problems before signing off for the rest of the cycle. Something smells and sounds off about Lanaai, so he inquires. The reply is vague, but he takes it mean she does not believe in _them_. That keyword “worried” immediately clarifies her sentiment to him.

_Aiva,_ “Lanaai… I’m not usually a _sap_ , but I fell in love with you so easily. If you are worried about our ‘relationship’ then don’t be. I’m not very good at this either, but it isn’t like I’ve had any experience with the matter… well except for our experience,” he thinks on his next words before continuing.

He wants to clear up any doubt, _You have to know,_ “I don’t want you to give me anything except yourself. I don’t want you to change yourself to fit into someone else’s definition of a mate. You are not suddenly a form of entertainment because we’ve tied. I just want to be able stand by your side and know that you are safe and happy,” _that’s all I ever wanted._

She looks completely shocked. Her mandibles quiver a little and her jaw hangs just slightly ajar. He decouples of the fasteners on his armor which comes to a point, resembling a top.

He spins the top-like fastener on her desk and it stays upright for a while before losing angular momentum and clattering back to the smooth glass.

“See? Not dreaming.”

He regrets whatever he said to make her keen like she does, but her emotions are all crossed. She pitches forward into his arms and cries. Maybe she believes him and this is what twenty four years of sucking up sadness and burying hopes looks like. Maybe she is rejoicing.

Garrus cannot remember a time when he has felt so in control of his own future, allowing himself to ignore the current state of the galaxy for a moment just to revel in her once more. He almost wants to ask her what is wrong, but thinks better of it. There is no point in bothering her with questions when right now, when all she wants is catharsis. He holds on to her while she weeps and does his best to keep calm, hoping that his unbroken resolve will mend hers.

“I’m sorry,” _it’s unbecoming of me,_ she finally says, her voice husky and her subharmonics still muddled. “I haven’t had a chance to… do that. Ever.”

She pauses for a moment and the gazes at the food, _spirits, I’m a mess,_ “Thanks for bringing me eats, Garrus.”

“Any time,” _aiva_.

The intonation for “bondmate” rolls off his subharmonics, bouncing pleasantly off the percussive bones in his vocal cords. She beams at him and trills sloppily.

“Already the cute pet name – not even a cycle after… after we… don’t make me cry again,” _my aivo_.

Hearing her say it back to him flops his stomach up and down his chest. Beautiful. Now he is smiling and he cannot stop thrumming.

_Focus,_ “Can’t cry if you stuff your face, Lanaai. Eat before it gets cold.”

_Hypocrite,_ “Can’t stuff my face if you’re distracting me with your amazing voice and personality… and ass.”

_Now, now,_ “It’s rude to stare.”

“Not my fault,” _good stuff,_ she skewers a cube of the meat with the fork and drops it into her mouth, chirping happily and purring with gratitude all at once. He finishes arranging his armor and returns to his seat in just his waist wrap. The omni-tool opens back up and reminds him that the galaxy is still in tatters and they have a long road ahead.

In the following cycle Garrus wakes before she does and remains in place. Ordinarily he would be up and out of the nest as soon as possible but for once he feels very little motivation to move. Lanaai is still sound asleep in his arms which is reason enough to remain put until she wakes up. He lies there for another thirty seconds before she stirs and immediately her abdominal plates slide apart ever so slightly, tugging on his.

Who is he to deny her what she wants? What he also wants? They have some time before they must be on their work shifts. He leans into her forehead and purrs. Without moving their position he uses his guideplates to slip inside her slowly and carefully. Her arms and legs tighten, but her plating remains soft and pliable. The top of her head sits comfortably under his chin, and her surprisingly deep purr is strong enough to rattle his ribcage.

He bottoms her out after savoring the sensation of her sheath and tail gripping his on its way in. They move very little and this use this experience to communicate the strength of their bond rather than relieve stress.

If it was not completely obvious in the previous cycle, it is now. He receives a few glances for proudly wearing Lanaai’s scent on himself. Sidonis notices as well and congratulates him on the development. The others know, but remain collected and focused; there is no need to go running around the halls broadcasting that the commander and the captain have become a tied pair.

With his head clear and his system replenished, he sits down to focus on the continued development efforts of _Apophis_. They have reached an agreement with Command and secured enough resources to complete the station in its entirety. Doing so would guarantee them the ability to repeatedly activate it in the event that the reapers spontaneously resurrect and decide to start their harvest once more. Lanaai works closely with him to direct the efforts and flesh-out any absent minutia in their layouts. He occasionally meets with Ash who reports on the cleanup efforts and Alliance movements. They are beginning to make progress.

Comparatively, the Alliance and the Hierarchy are faring far better than the other organized governments. Both powers have strong-armed the salarians and the asari into creating a quarian council position for the newly-formed galactic council. The two councilors both still see the quarians as a part of the problem because a section of the geth were known to have fought for the reapers, ignoring that _Apophis_ was only completed because they had several geth manufacturing lines dedicated to the project and working non-stop.

Despite the fact that the Morning War was formally terminated and the quarians are returning to Rannoch with the assistance of their geth equals, the mere presence of the geth still counts as a major ethical transgression. Political opinion generally remains hostile towards the geth as the next potential galactic threat, representing a step towards a new line of reapers. Garrus just cannot see that happening any time soon. By design, the geth are very docile until provoked. They have very little motive to expand or mindlessly kill because they seek “more power.” The reapers were explicitly programmed to harvest whereas the geth were programmed to assist their creators.

But the reaper’s words never leave him, and he remains wary. They will have to dedicate the rest of their lives to seeing that their descendants do not feel compelled to bring about their own demise and restart the cycle. They lost too much to make the same mistake. And yet, the reaper was so confident…

* * *

Lanaai has no idea how be in any other kind of relationship with Garrus because she has never advanced past “arms-length friends” with anyone else. Garrus was the one exception she made and continues to make, but that does not mean she understands it.

She has never known how to be someone else to him, so she seriously hopes that a formally-acknowledged relationship does not require her to be different. Garrus arrives at her quarters at the end of the day, sets a box of savory-smelling food down on her desk, settles down on the couch next to her, and begins rummaging through his omni-tool. It takes him about three seconds to notice her apprehensive subharmonics and realize that she is concerned about something. He cocks his head to one side.

_Hey,_ “Something wrong over there, Lanaai?”

She looks over and his eyes pull hers in, almost startlingly. She can try to dance around the issue or remain reticent, but he will see through any attempt. Garrus knows how she moves and how she thinks, and he may even know what she is about to tell him. She can stall and turn away, but she cannot lie to him. So she has to tell him because the problem will plague her until she speaks about it.

_I’m nervous,_ “I can’t shake the idea that yesterday was a dream, Garrus…” she wonders if he will understand exactly what she means by that, so she does not have to explain herself further. He trills inquisitively, thinking.

“I know I shouldn’t be worried-” _but I-_ she continues, but he cuts her off.

_Spirits,_ he stands up swiftly and presses his forehead into hers. The muscles in her back cease to function momentarily.

Garrus delivers such a beautifully-crafted and concise proclamation to her that she can physically feel her fears melting away. Each word is carried on another wave of his calming, creamy voice that soothes any kind of burning, self-inflicted doubt. Yesterday felt like a dream, but the affirmation that reality has led her this way and that their paths truly are entwined hits her now.

In the same way a terrible wound hurts the most after the adrenaline has worn off, so too does the realization of this new development. The past section was a whirlwind, so busy that it blends together in her mind, but yesterday’s dream and today’s reality are very distinct. She kept herself at arms-length during his recovery, in denial of the inevitable. Garrus’ stupid little joke-reference with the fastener is so genuinely and authentically _him_ that her already weary and weakened shell crumbles around her.

Her host has no memories of crying; the circumstances of her past and her developing years made her impervious to it. The memories come from the human. The last time she cried must have been when she was seven or eight, after having done something exceedingly stupid on her bike and eating dirt. She was young, but she learned what physical pain was and learned what it meant to cope with it. Crying came from the introduction of a new level of pain, one previously thought to be impossible, and not the pain itself.

Turians do not cry like humans do, but it does not really matter because the psychological process is the same. This time, the shock comes from experiencing new levels of elation that she did not think were possible. She has to apologize for subjecting him to it, even if she knows he will attempt convince her she has nothing to apologize for. He says nothing and continues to hold her awkwardly against himself through the armor, which is exactly what she needs right now.

She remembers… she remembers her father – Telicos – teaching her what the word “ _aiva_ ” meant after she heard him address his mate as such. Now she can feel it when Garrus speaks and fully-comprehend the sentiment. A cycle of firsts for her, all of which she can barely handle. She essays a humorous statement which backfires half way through, but Garrus picks up the slack for her with levity singing in his subharmonics. It becomes easier after that and she gains control over herself.

She is extremely hungry so she digs into the snack he brought while he finishes undressing and returns to his seat. Eventually Garrus moseys over to her nesting pod and curls up. She goes about her nightly routine and then joins him in what has now become _their_ nest. He automatically moves to accommodate her and settles back with his arms around her waist. The welcomed sensation of his plates relaxing follows soon after, and she purrs as she sinks farther into his embrace. Tomorrow will hell as usual, but it has no power over them now.

She feels filled already as she wakes up. After a few moments she finds that Garrus is, in fact, buried deep inside her and rocking his hips gently. What a feeling; what a way to cross back into reality. Her body must have let him enter before waking. After eventually disengaging they saunter into the shower to clean each other and prepare for the work cycle.

She notes how Garrus no longer uses a pheromone bleach to eliminate all traces of her unique scent… he is making a conscious decision to broadcast to the world that he is now bonded to her. Without exchanging a single word he tends to her fringes, drawing the polishing compound back with the unwavering, experienced hands of a deadly operator and refined artist.

“Let’s go eat,” _you made me,_ she finally says, “before it all gets cold and I have to cram it in the microwave.”

“Not a fan of cold, mushy _lenten’l,_ Lanaai?” _because I am,_ he snorts.

_What a shame for you,_ “It’s out-the-airlock for anyone who does.”

“Calmed down” is the phrase she would apply to the current state of galactic affairs, but it is completely relative. Everyone is still reeling from their losses, and Sur’kesh and Thessia are still in shambles. Many more casualties have ensued as a result of lingering damages inflicted during the war, or by burning reapers. At the very least the attacks on turian freighters have diminished significantly since the Aegis fleet sent out an alarming quantity of assault cruisers to accompany them.

She receives an excited message from Legion and Zorah who say the quarians have elected a delegate to join the council. The quarians are thriving on Rannoch, most of which was ignored by the harvest. The geth presence throughout the major quarian cities kept them in pristine working order… it is as if they never left. Acronus feels the envy, but she recognizes that she has it far better than just about everyone else. She has control, competent assistance, and most importantly, someone to protect her. The quarians deserve retribution, surely, but they _did_ give birth to a sapient race. The geth must be recognized as such and the quarians need to understand that they have no right to subjugate them.

The Hierarchy and the Alliance shift their assignments around once more, which means that once again, her crew is about to be disbanded and reassigned elsewhere. Lanaai is not a fan of the news. With no major issues she thought they were setting a perfect example of unity for everyone else… but then she remembers that the existence of the _Indictor_ is classified anyway and it is highly-likely that no one realizes the important role her crew played in ending this war. Solus and T’soni need to go back to their lives, and Williams and Kryik need to break free of this prison.

They are going to be gutted and transferred to field roles because their skills are required to stop raids on vulnerable supply stations. She supposes it will quell her bloodlust after this long period of sitting on her ass, commanding her brothers and sisters to die for her and for their Hierarchy. She wants to give back with her own blood and exertion.

Acronus says goodbye to Williams, Joker, and her former crew once more. Most of the wartime occupants also depart and leave their ship with a skeleton operating crew. They will be stationed in orbit around Palaven for a while, maybe take shore leave in there somewhere, and then they will be reassigned back to the _Ilyx_. The transfer period will give them several days of downtime. Cipritine has been rebuilding with the same extreme efficiency turians apply to everything. Geth arrivals and emergency storage for construction drones are making a huge difference on the ground.

_You remember,_ “I always wanted to grow up and design starships,” she says as they step out into the boulevards of Cipritine, “we always did…” she continues, “but right now I really just want to shoot some bad guys and let my mind go for a while.”

“I hear you,” _aiva_ , “but how many years has it been since we sat down and designed something,” she opens her mouth to answer his question literally but he cuts her off.

_Don’t answer, you’ll disappoint yourself,_ “Rhetorical question. And I don’t really want to think about it anyway. Someday… but I know you so I know that you are itching for some physical field work. Hell, I am too.”

Her subharmonics skitter in a light chuckle, “We have the luxury of knowing a period to unwind. Then we’ll jump back into the fire,” _together._ No amount of time will be enough to cure Garrus of his nightmares, but any time will help.

_Always,_ “Sounds like a plan.”

The ashes of Palaven are hidden by the resurrection efforts. The Primarch meets them and expresses deep gratitude for their forewarning and push to act early. They barely scraped through this war, and if they had not taken action there would be virtually no more turian specie. They have several days of downtime before they are to return to the field to help stop raiders and incidents.

The sudden reduction in control and the added pressure to do anything to survive have spawned a huge wave of pirates and mercenary activity. Ordinarily they would ignore this kind of thing, but right now vital supply lines and depots are being targeted and raided. As much as the Hierarchy would like to share their resources, they have no margin to work with. Their people need aid as much as anyone else.

The Primarch’s request to publicly-acknowledge their efforts emerges from smoke. Class ω are generally forbidden from public exposure, but the Primarch does have the right to override that. He dodges the request because he does not want to be paraded around like an asset. He also knows Lanaai has a particular disdain for pomp and ceremony, particularly because of what the Hierarchy did to her.

“I politely declined,” _firmly,_ he tells her.

_Spirits hold you,_ “Oh thank the spirits,” she breathes and leans her forehead against his armor, “ceremonies give me an aneurysm.”

_You jest,_ “You’d survive. It’s not that bad.”

“Would I, Garrus? I don’t need to be fingered to death in front of the galactic populace just so the Hierarchy can make itself seem righteous. Not that they aren’t righteous… well nobody is righteous. Anyway it would just be stupid and brash.”

_Fair assessment,_ “Yeah, but it would probably help morale.”

“We already have public figureheads and war heroes from this nightmare. I don’t want the attention.”

* * *

They place her on several field runs with Garrus under Blackwatch command and she performs perfectly with them. Their schedule is organized and their missions are straight-forward. Large corporations have still not had enough time to dip their fingers into sponsoring PMC’s and raiders, so the rings they take down are brutish and predictable. She and Garrus flow into combat and strike down their targets with deadly grace, and the violence satisfies her in a way that nothing else can. Her nightmares from Mindior become worse and increase in frequency, so eventually she has to take some time away to see a psychiatrist.

She and her mate conduct business as usual for nearly three sections, until Command calls them both back to coordinate fleet movements. She does not understand where Command fathomed the idea that she is a strategist – her luck defending Apophis does not make her particularly knowledgeable in the ways of organizing the movements for millions of men, women, and now children. She cannot leave Garrus’ side, however, so she stays up here with him.

“I don’t like doing this, Garrus,” _I wish I were doing something else,_ she sighs and reclines into their nest, “I wanted to get away from this faceless leading and _do_ something.”

“I understand completely,” _me too_ , he replies softly. They both wanted to be something before they separated and they both lost their paths.

“But I’m not sure what I want to do with myself,” _I’m disgusted with what I’ve become_ , she scowls.

“What do you mean? I’m sure you could find a position somewhere designing starships like we…” _like we used to… oops,_ he blurts.

_Don’t mention it,_ “Stationary? Maybe that’s what I wanted at one point but I can’t tell anymore,” _why is it like this?_ she looks up at him as she gets out her datapad to start scouring the extranet for the latest.

“You never got a chance,” _but you are different, we are,_ he rumbles, deep in thought. It seems like an obvious statement, but in this context Garrus is not talking about her physical form – he perceived beauty in her, somehow, under both the caramel-colored skin of her previous life, and the plates and hide of this one. It brings her solace to know that Garrus thinks of her as Lanaai and not Lia, because her personality did not entirely survive the transformation, and there is certainly someone else in here with her. Where she picked up security and confidence in some aspects of her life, she lost patience and pacifism in others.

She could take the chance now… but she does not want to leave him. The last time she left they became different people entirely and she cannot risk losing him to himself again.

“You’re exhausted, I can tell,” _I can really tell_ , he says without looking up from his datapad. She knows he means overall, and not simply because she did not sleep in the previous cycle. He still knows her, and she still cannot hide anything from him no matter how hard she tries to keep her personal flaws out of his concerns. She still has trouble acknowledging that he has a right to know when she needs something, from minor material favors to deep and powerful psychological support.

“I am,” _I really am_ , she replies and leans back, placing her datapad back on the shelf surrounding the nest.

“What do you need?” _please let me help you_ , he puts down his datapad and stands up from the desk.

“Short term or long term?” _you probably know_ , she asks.

“Either,” he replies, leaving his subharmonics empty.

“I need to rest… I _need_ to rest,” _so tired,_ she repeats herself, “I want the Hierarchy to get off my cowl for a moment so I can figure out what I’m supposed to be.”

“I can help arrange that,” _and take care of the short term_ , he purrs and disrobes. She does not doubt his ability to pull authority around; the Primarch calls _him_ to ask for advice. For better or for worse, her mate practically runs the Hierarchy right now, so if he wishes he can have her assigned to any role easily. She finds that amount of power incredibly dangerous, but she also knows Garrus is the only individual in the galaxy who qualifies to wield it.

In the meantime he sets himself down behind her and pulls her into his embrace, purring softly. She responds happily, shifting and relaxing her dorsal plates so he can pull her closer. Her cowling relaxes enough, finally, to allow him to rest his lips against the back of her neck and stroke her fringes delicately.

His guideplates prod at her guardplates and she parts them eagerly, awaiting the satisfying sensation of being filled completely. His arms tighten a bit as his tail slips inside her and sinks down to her core. Her hips buck and her stomach tightens as he pushes as deep as she will allow. She feels pressure against the base of her sheath and everything constricts involuntarily as she moans and grits her teeth.

Garrus nips at her neck and begins to move himself while she attempts to hold on to lucidity. Her muscles relax as she adjusts to the sensation once more. She twists her head and presses her crown into his cheek while he continues to move his hips beneath hers.

Eventually he begins to throw more energy behind his thrusts and flares. She wraps her fingers around the ledges of the nest to brace herself as he moves to a crouch and really begins to hammer his hips into hers. He is clearly far more stressed out than he lets on and only now, once he has allowed his mind to let go, does it seem to manifest. She has always known him to hide what he perceives as “weaknesses,” so she supposes that this is an acceptable approach to mitigate that, at least for now.

She regains her mind some time later as Garrus calms down and pulls her back into a secure embrace. She sighs in satiation and shifts her legs slightly to relieve pressure while he rolls forward. And still, after every rut or intimate exchange, she can hardly believe she even has Garrus at her back in the first place.

Her mind is clear and she begins thinking again before she can stop herself. Lia and Garrus had plans to shape the future – and they certainly did – but right now their approach is all wrong. When she discovered that violence is a highly-effective solution to a number of problems, including her own sense of insecurity, she gave up a part of herself to subscribe to that perspective. Through his own admission, Garrus is no different.

She wants to return, however, now that she has the chance.

They both have lingering visions when they sleep. The company seems to help mitigate them, but Garrus certainly has it worse than she does and always has. The Obelisk showed him several millennia of genocide all at once and left him with a permanent sense of impending catastrophe, no matter how much she tries to make him feel safe and loved. She recognizes the signs of a minor inferiority complex developing inside her as she is unable to help him as her instincts demand she must.

She clearly remembers the first time this happened, and the second time was no less shocking, but after several occurrences she learns how to handle it properly. Perhaps it was always this frequent, and now that they always share a nest she notices it more. He wakes her up with his squirming and anguished rumbling at least once per period. She does not find pleasure in holding him back and crooning softly to him to calm his nerves; it is simply a feature of their relationship that she accepts as an exchange for his survival. No psychiatrist can ever correct this, and he may never stop seeing them, but she will always be there to help.

Tonight is one of those nights. The now-familiar sensation of his arms tightening from a comfortable embrace to a vice-like desperate hold wakes her first. She pries his arms off her with some difficulty, but he lets her go after some hassling. She begins to purr and croon to him as she straddles his waist and locks his legs with hers to hold him from thrashing about or getting up and crawling to the corner of the nest. Lanaai rests her forehead against his and his limbs relax. His eyes open and he focuses on her with a forlorn, apologetic gaze that breaks her heart every time she sees it.

Garrus _wakes up_ during these episodes now, instead of tuning them out as he used to. The first couple of times Garrus apologizes profusely and threatens to leave her in the nest so she can get some proper sleep and he can go be alone with his torments. She refuses to let him go, and they go back to sleep without another event.

The first apologies are verbal: “Spirits I’m so sorry for waking you,” _aiva, please forgive me_. Obviously, she forgives him. She forgives him every time.

“You’ve been through hell,” _I’m here for you_ , she replies. Lanaai never complains to him or gives any indication with her body language or subharmonics that she finds his intrusion on their resting period to be a nuisance. It never is.

However, these apologies eventually devolve. Where he used to be asking for forgiveness for the simple act of waking her, they become _begging_ for forgiveness for being _too weak_ to handle himself. Lanaai’s reaction to this is so negative that he decides to start seeing the trauma specialist on their station.

Now, he says nothing when he wakes; he knows she accepts him and he knows he cannot avoid it. The therapist could not help him stop the nightmares, but she could help him understand that they are a part of who he is. Lanaai, in turn, helps him internalize that she is here to support him at all times and costs, and that she will never turn him away for who he is.

Still, he apologizes with his subharmonics while she keeps rubbing her crown against his tenderly. She replies with her own deep, rolling purr to assure him that he is safe and that she loves him. He is hers to comfort and hers to protect. She falls asleep before he does and the rest of their rest period goes undisturbed.

When they wake up she invites him inside her once again for a slow, deeply satisfying rut. She keeps her body flush with his and holds her hips still while he sinks his tail into her sheath and flares. Her legs tighten around his waist and her arms pull his chest closer to hers while their hips remain locked together. He strokes the sensitive skin on her back between her plates with the blunted talons on his right hand.

Again, he puts pressure on the base of her sheath as if asking for permission to slip into her womb, and she sees sparks in her vision as her back begins to arch. This sensation is new to her and she does not quite know what it means – it is terrifying and thrilling all at once.

After they find satiation, they resume their lives and move onward to the next batch of tasks and obligations. Garrus speaks to her after First about where she may want to go that does not involve ordering people around from her proverbial throne.

“I’ve been looking through Hierarchy listings for ‘non-military’ positions,” he says as he sips his kava, “there are quite a few that you’d probably be interested in,” _I hope_.

“I’m listening,” _please continue_ , she replies.

“Aurer has an official link with the Hierarchy, and they are currently hiring. Command could also put you on an R & D effort to build a new line of starships. If not that, then there are always more physical options like – I know you like spacewalking – you could get into that if you wanted. There is also piloting repair rigs. Drone fleet pilot, uh… field engineer… more development projects…” _many options_ , he trails off as he continues down the list.

She scowls at the thought of _drone pilot._ How disgusting. She finds the working conditions deplorable and she could never convince herself to take up the same line of work that got her father killed. Spacewalking for a living could be the answer, perhaps. Aurer would definitely have options.

“Aurer survived?” _I’m surprised_ , she trills, veering her thoughts away from someone else’s. She had not expected the manufacturer to make it after they lost most of their assets to the reapers.

“They are actually doing quite well. They are the only private turian-owned starship manufacturer left so the Hierarchy has them subsidized to hell and back,” _I suppose that is acceptable for now_.

_I guess so_ , “I’ll apply – I always wanted to work there.”

_I remember_ , “sounds like a plan. I’ll talk to my superiors about getting a transfer to Palaven.”

“Thank you so much for doing this, Garrus,” _I love you_ , she taps her crown against his.

“Of course. I think I could use a change of scenery as well,” _put my feet on solid ground_ , “So what do you have planned for today?”

“You know,” _the usual_ , “deal with bad news and attempt to make the best of it.”

“Ah yes,” _the usual_ , he replies, “I’m stuck in meetings all day. If I’m lucky I’ll get a few moments to spar and catch up on the op-ball semifinals.”

“What?” _I’m surprised again_.

“Oh yeah, op-ball managed to start up again about as soon as possible,” _probably a money thing_ , “someone has to entertain the masses,” he says and pauses to think. Lanaai also thinks about it – it seems obvious when he says it, but in her mind everyone is still recovering. The galaxy has other ideas about how to be normal, it seems. She wonders how long it will take for people to forget how much this war with the reapers affected everyone and everything.

“Who’s squaring off?” she asks, more interested in his opinion on it and not the sport itself. She wants to hear him talk some more before she has to negotiate resources and tell people who need help that they cannot have it yet.

“Team from Novateatrus, _Verridan_ , the ‘Wraiths’” _my people,_ “versus a team from Convel, _Raenera,_ ‘Spirit-sent’” _rivals_ , he says as he stands back up to return his empty kava mug to the dishwasher. Lanaai runs a quick search so she can contribute something to this conversation other than “that’s great.”

_Vakarians,_ “Those look like-” she begins.

“They are. Most of Wraiths are – at least now they are. I’m glad to see that some of my clan managed to survive…” _not sure_ , “not so sure about seeing them appear immediately in _sport_ again, but I suppose they’re helping by giving the rest of us something to rally behind. Well… most of us. I know you aren’t much of a sports person.”

“That’s not true,” _that’s completely true_ , she scoffs. Garrus shoots her a crooked grin and a pair of flared mandibles.

“I’ll see you later for a spar and Second,” _I promise, aiva_ , he says with conviction, like he is convincing himself.

“Of course,” _until then aivo_ , she replies and kisses him briefly before letting him go. She glances down at her omni-tool; five minutes until her first meeting of many. She already looks forward to seeing Garrus at spar and Second. She feels the same excitement she did at six years old, when they first met.


	39. Chapter 39

Garrus keeps in touch with Solus, especially now that the krogan are beginning to make things difficult as Garrus was afraid they would. Solus still has the cure for the genophage just sitting around somewhere, but with no method or motivation to deploy it after Eve was killed, it simply gathers dust now. He steers conversations away from mentions of it and generally dislikes recalling it. He sometimes brings up that “Wrex” individual, who Garrus now knows is a very powerful leader on Tuchanka, but he always shoots down conversations regarding the krogan.

It is unclear whether or not someone else discovered a similar cure or the reapers did something to the krogan, but their fertility rates have skyrocketed since the war ended. Solus suspects another salarian conducted similar research and developed an agent independently of his own; he does not doubt the genius and the guilt of a fellow salarian.

This all started to become apparent once the turian colonies that barely survived the reapers started dealing with trouble from krogan raiders who showed up to stake a claim over the land there. They appear to be targeting only turian colonies, and currently no one seems to care. Garrus knows Mordin as a generally-optimistic, sprightly, and twitchy individual in the face of any obstacle, but recently he has soured; he becomes challenging to reach and very short-tempered. Garrus refrains from reminding him that he said this would happen – it would not make him feel better anyway, and Solus already knows that.

Solus goes dark shortly after sending a terse message about “taking things into his own hands.” Solus is incredibly out-spoken about the importance of ethics and morals in scientific testing, but when he gets angry he develops an apathy to them. Garrus is concerned that Solus will hurt someone, but he has no idea where the former STG plans an going. So he lets the salarian go with a single “Spirits guide you” in reply.

Garrus scowls at a new message on his omni-tool as he loiters between the last harrowing meeting and the next. Command has, against anyone’s best interests except their own, assigned him to command a Blackwatch legion – an entire _legion_ with Blackwatch authority – to “investigate” the growing krogan aggression towards recovering turian colonies. He finds the cause noble and he wishes to fight for his brothers and sisters, but he cannot simply drop his growing bond with Lanaai or his camaraderie with his remaining squadmates to deploy. There are plenty of competent individuals within the Hierarchy to send in his place. The council should also be asked for Spectres to help.

Command attempts to justify the change in posting by citing his previous experience with krogan raiders and that he is one of their most brilliant tacticians. He finds the flattery off-putting and unconvincing. He can make himself available to coordinate strike efforts, but he refuses to hop off to some remote corner of Hierarchy space to bloody his hands.

However, Garrus is staring into the face of a nebulous entity much more powerful than himself, and they will likely force the transfer whether he wishes it or not. He can complain to the Primarch all he wants, but the Primarch does not have ultimate control over Blackwatch; he is simply a member of their upper command. His word there carries weight, but if the other anonymous individuals overrule his decisions then he must stand down.

Garrus sighs and fingers the notch on his mandible absent-mindedly. The small split between the long and short prongs of his mandibles, barely visible to the naked eye, opened several cycles ago. The minuscule fissure runs no more than two millimeters up from the existing gap, but he can feel it there and he notices it every time he looks in the mirror. _Bonded_. There is no longer any lingering doubt.

He sees Lanaai has it too as of yesterday, though hers is much harder to spot – it sits on the inside of her mandibles out of sight, but he can see it when she smiles or laughs. He has kept quiet about it so far, but he will have to bring it up at some point. This phenomenon only occurs to turians with recent northern ancestry, generally limited to the province of _Caperus_ , so this is not common knowledge. The people responsible for… _building_ Lanaai must have incorporated some genetic lineage from there. Her features echo the softer and gentler curvature of northern females, and her face is distinctly northern with its narrower chin and thinner nose.

There is only one _legal_ way around Command that he can imagine. Command will be unable to separate them, but they may send them both out to deploy anyway. He cannot do that to her after she expressed her wishes to seek a more productive career creating things. He wonders if this gesture will cause Command to reconsider. If not, then he may have to start calling in favors and applying back-pressure.

This is selfish, but he feels that he served his purpose and now he may move onto another path. His time may be spent helping the Hierarchy without throwing himself into combat and mowing down raiders.

He catches Lanaai at the end of the cycle at the sparring mats where he watches her play defense against Sidonis, who has her dancing all over the mats. She eventually gains a handhold and drops him into a pin. He taps out and she quickly pulls him to his feet. She turns and smiles to Garrus, showing off the notch on her left mandible, as she passes to the showers.

“I’ll see you in a moment,” _unless you spar_ , she says.

_I will_ , he replies and steps onto the mat to square off with Nissus. He has to work off some of the anxiety ahead of time because he knows the upcoming conversation will be difficult. He must be losing his mind because Ti manages to pin him several times when he usually takes the upper hand.

_What’s wrong?_ She trills to him as she helps him up.

_Anxious_ , he replies. He brushes off her attempts to push for more detail. After showering off, he returns to his and Lanaai’s nest to speak with her.

She looks up and her mandibles clench, _you look nervous_.

_I am_ , “Rough day?” he tries and fails to hide it.

_Please tell me what’s wrong_ , “Of course. Same old. Diamond, though: I’ve had several options open up thanks to you,” _my deepest gratitude_ , “so I’ve taken a position at Aurer.”

_Wonderful! I’m proud of you_ , “that’s some diamond!” he forgets his fears and anxiety for a moment to enjoy her accomplishment with her.

“What are they going to have you do?” _I’m curious_ , he inquires.

“Not sure. The position is in the design department under mentorship from one of their masters,” _what I wanted_ , she reads over the message again in disbelief. He can tell she has read over the words more than once just to make sure she has not misinterpreted anything.

“I think you’ll enjoy it,” _I know you will_.

“It’s more or less what I went to school for… before it all went south and I started shooting people for a living,” _I am ashamed_. He purrs in and hugs her shoulders into his chest.

“To be fair, you seem to be quite accomplished at shooting people. You had me fooled,” _I still knew you_.

_You did_ , “yeah, I suppose the Alliance also thought so… and the Hierarchy if you consider my… uh… me” _host,_ “Anyway… did you have something you wanted to tell me?” _please_.

Garrus stills and remembers.

“Command…” he starts but quickly aborts, opting to take a different approach to this conversation.

“Lanaai, do you know what this is?” _here_ , he presses the tip of his talon to the notch on his mandible. She squints and finds it with her eyes, reaching out to touch it as well. He leans into her palm instinctively and purrs.

“No, please explain,” _I am curious,_ her voice is soft and she sits back.

“Did you notice you have one as well?” _here_ , he slips his talon under her mandible and draws a line, hearing the faint clicking sound as it passes over the separation.

“I…” _I don’t think so?_ she trills as if unsure, “has that always been there?” _I don’t look there._

“This notch…” he guides her talon back to his mandible, “northern turians, like you and I, get this when we bond. Apparently it used to be quite prominent in our ancestors as a way to tell who had a mate.”

“How have I not heard about this before?” _seems like everyone should know_.

“It’s not really talked about, and it’s limited to a relatively small genetic group. And if you don’t know what to look for then you’ll miss it. I only know because my father explained it to me once.”

_We bond?_ “wait what?”

_We bond_ , “you heard me.”

She cocks her head to one side and her mandibles flutter as she attempts to figure out what he means. She rests her talon against her own notch and her eyes defocus.

_Really?_ She half-trills half-warbles, “I can’t believe it,” _not possible_ , she mutters. He can hear that accent strengthen now that her voice is thick.

“Says the woman who came back to life,” _believe it,_ he chuckles, “who orchestrated the downfall of our ‘overlords,’” _trust me._

“I’m not used to it,” _I’ve been alone,_ the accent deepens.

_Not anymore,_ “Not sure what I can say to that. This is what you wanted right?”

“Yes,” _yes! yesss, oh spirits,_ that accent must be from her “host” as she refers to it. Perhaps it is wrong to admit that he has begun to find it quite cute, and that he rather enjoys it. It reminds him of home, somehow, and seems to fit into her throat more naturally than its unaccented counterpart.

“Well then, I’ll be yours,” _aiva_ , he smiles amicably and happily.

She lets out a wavering laugh and pulls herself up to his forehead.

“Sign it on my neck,” _again,_ she smiles and bares her teeth, and her voice returns to normal.

_I will_ , he growls back.

_I detect something else_ , she lowers herself but leaves her hand on his mandible.

“There is. We should go ahead and get the papers signed as soon as possible…” _I’m ashamed to say so_ , he raises his chin and bears his neck in embarrassment.

“Let me guess, they’re trying to transfer you,” _damn them,_ she sighs and shakes her head. Her voice is back to normal again.

“They are,” _don’t misinterpret my love for you_ , he replies angrily thinking about the absurdity of it.

“Well… I guess they can go fuck themselves,” _see if they can take you from me_ , she bares her teeth and cackles, “sign me right up, Vakarian. I’ll be yours,” _or its mutiny_.

_My spirit_ , “that’s my girl. I’m sorry it isn’t exactly romantic. I… wasn’t going to wait much longer anyway, but this notice just hit me today. I wanted… I wanted to make it special. An island in the tropics, just the two of us… but command had other ideas,” _I apologize._

_No more apologies,_ “Command works like that. And you? Romantic?” _don’t pull my mandible,_ “When did we ever need that? And for the record, I have the docs partially-filled out already in a half-assed attempt to convince myself to do something; say something. Not like it changes anything really…” _I always felt this_.

_We did,_ he pushes his crown onto hers and fills her with warmth.

“Proactive Lanaai is my favorite Lanaai,” he mumbles.

* * *

Lanaai still cannot quite believe it. She hands the datapad to her mate who takes it and puts it aside. _Her mate._

This is what she wanted. This is what she wants.

The framing is unfortunate and she wishes they could have talked about this under different circumstances, but they are both characteristically shy with regards to tricky concepts like _emotions_. Garrus’ introspective and heartfelt buildup to the revelation around which she constructed her life immediately makes her suspicious of his motives. She does not doubt his authenticity or truth in his body language; she just doubts he would tell her outright. She knows he loves her and she has only recently begun to take the concept of it for granted, so she does not really need to hear him say the words.

Even her body agrees that they are tied.

She finds solace, as usual, in Garrus’ company as their day comes to a close. She always found safety in it, but now she feels a gripping sensation in her chest when he is nearby. When he glances over to her, he does so with a genuine and raw expression of love and admiration radiating from his posture. Whatever he lost between the beginning of his academy years and today returns in the smile he gives just for her. He seems to be quite exhausted so she sets herself to preening and massaging his plates as he lies in their nest.

She remains awake slightly longer than he does and watches over him for a moment, convincing herself that he is, in fact, still real. When she maneuvers her way into position to curl up next to him, he rolls over and wraps himself around her with a purr. She can tell her mandibles form a crooked grin as she feels his flutter against the side of her head while he adjusts to make her comfortable, even while sleeping.

She wakes up to find Garrus beside her, stroking her fringes lazily with one hand while he holds up his datapad in the other. He glances down when he notices her eyes open and her body become alert. His mandibles flare into a smile and his purr grows louder.

_I am surprised,_ “It appears the Hierarchy works quickly,” _that’s new,_ he offers her the datapad, which she grabs once she sits up next to him. Her eyes go wide once she reads through the short statement:

– Year 09Β3, Sec 12, Day 10 –

Distinguised Captain of the Hierarchy 20C-1Δ166E, Lanaai Acronus(ω) [A], is hereby bound to Distinguised Executor of the Hierarchy 10A-Φ8Δ101 Garrus Vakarian(ω) [1]. 20C-1Δ166E shall henceforth be known to all as Lanaai Vakarian. The newly-bonded individual is entitled to an officiator if it desires, but due to the classes of its components, public attendance is prohibited and an officiator must be approved by the Hierarchy.

– Congratulations, may the spirits lift you both. Thank you for all you’ve done for us.  


She re-reads the message a few times just to be sure.

It is official. She touches the markings on her face and she feels slightly light-headed. Soon-enough they will need to visit a scribe to have the Vakarian markings permanently etched onto her plates and a proper chapter written onto her _seravim._ Her dreams, however altered by forces outside of her control, draw nearer and nearer to reality.

It hits her several seconds later that Garrus is _tier one._ The only people who have more authority than he does are the heads of Command and the Primarch of Palaven. Garrus could go to Taetrus and _supersede_ her Primarch; exert control over the entire planet. Lanaai should not have to worry about their security.

With this officiating acknowledgment, they can no longer take Garrus away from her. The Hierarchy will not break their honor and separate bonded individuals, no matter how much they would like to. She will go wherever Garrus decides to go, or vice versa, and there are plenty of perfectly accomplished warriors and thinkers out there to fill whichever role the Hierarchy needs. She will be perfectly happy to go along with him and accompany him into combat with a rifle or into the engineering labs with a datapad.

In accordance to their newly-bonded status, Garrus requests and receives an assignment at Aurer. Together they will have to claw and tear their way back up to the path they used to tread, and remap the future they thought they saw so clearly. She returns to her life and her duties as usual, convincing herself to look forward to a future with her best friend and better half planted soundly in it. Garrus graciously allows her to lead the two of them back towards the potential they threw away.

There is no shortage of work in a galaxy that is still balanced on the edge of the apocalypse. They are both currently destined for contract work designing low-cost, high-utility transportation craft to help with relief efforts. Until now, there has not been such a need for extremely multi-purpose craft, so the only available starships cannot perform the tasks required of them. Warships make poor transportation craft, and freighters are not fast-enough or powerful-enough to properly defend themselves.

In the periods between their posting on the _Ilyx_ and their new positions with the Hierarchy-run initiative at Aurer, they are granted “shore leave.” Garrus warns her that they will have auditors trailing them, so they need to be careful what they say and do, but in general they will have some degree of freedom to move about. And, being the good turian that he is, Garrus wants to take her to meet his parents – it is both respectful and traditional to bring the bonded one into the house and welcome them into the family.

For whatever reason, the notion of meeting his family again terrifies her. She cannot realistically shed her disguise before them like she could with Garrus. He knows her; knew Shepard so well – shared so much with her – that it was possible to reveal herself to him and expect him to believe it. Anyone else would simply think her insane and shun both her and Garrus for it. Unfortunate, but completely true.

“They’ll love you because I love you,” _of course they will!_ Garrus laughs without the slightest trace of apprehension when she confesses her anxiety to him.

_I hope so,_ “I don’t know Garrus… will they actually approve of me because of who I am, or will they pretend to because they trust you?” _I am still worried._

“Lanaai,” _aiva,_ “They aren’t senseless, and if they liked you before then they will like you now.”

He places a hand on her shoulder which she covers with her own, thinking deeply about what she has to say and do in order to come across as genuine.

_They’ll see us together,_ she trills out loud, accidentally voicing her thoughts to him. She can lie to them about who she is and where she came from, but she _cannot_ cover up the way she interacts with Garrus. His family will immediately latch onto the familiarity of watching her behavior around him and find it unsettling. They will not be able to rationalize it, so instead they will blame their uneasiness on her existence rather than their lack of understanding.

_Stop worrying, aiva,_ he replies, but his tone of voice is unreadable.

The next morning after untangling from their languid lovemaking, Garrus reaches into a drawer beside the nest and retrieves a small metal box emblazoned with the Vakarian wings.

_It’s time,_ “Something I’ve wanted to do since…” he looks away for a moment and shakes his head, _a long, lonely time._ He keens softly as he opens the box and reveals a set of three brushes, acetone, and a jar of Vakarian Cobalt. Lanaai stares blankly for a moment at the contents of the box and then back at him. His mandibles flare, but not into a smile. He leans his forehead onto hers and transfers a profound sense of longing to her.

_Sit up,_ “Look at me and try to keep your head still… hopefully I don’t shake my hands around too much,” he laughs nervously, _oh spirits, my nerves._

He sounds like he is about to start keening in earnest; she has never seen Garrus, of all people, quite so emotionally tangled-up. She keeps her mouth shut, however, because she feels the same way. Retribution has finally arrived after almost three decades of yearning.

_Not going anywhere, aivo,_ her accent is back. It seems like it has become more prevalent lately, particularly when she gets emotional, “Steady hands, Garrus. You have this. I know you do.”

Being so unashamedly in love with him and experiencing such a turian relationship is making her _more turian,_ Slowly, pieces of Lanaai – the host and the _real turian_ – are manifesting in her personality as a result. She is not entirely sure if that is good or bad, but she does not want to stop it. She turns her attention back to her mate as he prepares to transcend.

She is a blank canvas and he is the artist. Her plates are quite sparse, with only three or four chapters more-or-less copied from the identity she assumed. Her face is bare underneath the temporary markings she paints on in the morning, waiting for permanent cobalt. She has imagined this moment since she figured out she was hopelessly in love with Garrus. Her host feels this, because she spent her life alone as well. Two lives worth of loneliness transpose into pure elation. He closes his eyes tightly, only for a second, then opens them so he can focus.

One hand rests on the side of her head to keep it steady, and she reflexively leans into it. She keeps watching as he dips the large brush in the cobalt ink and allows the excess to drip away before moving back to her. He scrutinizes her plates carefully and the lays down a single, confident, sweeping brush stroke with the experience and precision of a master painter; she expected no less from her mate. His hand changes position to her chin so he can paint on the other side.

He leans back and inspects his work while it dries, looking pleased and overwhelmed all at once. He briefly switches to the medium-sized brush and drops the Varai-Vakarian Bridge onto her nose. She notices that he adds an extra line and reminds herself to ask him about it when he finishes marking her mandibles. With several polished strokes he blocks out the markings on her mandibles. Finally, he dips the detail brush into the pigment and touches up the edges to make them clean and geometric.

Garrus finishes by adding a single vertical line from her chin to the bottom of her lip, surprising her. Before she can wonder why, he pushes his crest into hers and the world seeps away into a sea of static and stars. Lanaai hears him purring when she regains control of herself, and her mandibles flare into a smile as he backs away and begins to stow the inking set. Lanaai takes an image of herself to inspect and admire his work. Her chest swells with pride as she traces the lines with her eyes. Garrus executed the inking perfectly.

_What is?_ she taps a talon near the chin marking after scrutinizing it. He looks at her for a moment, stunned into silence, like he cannot believe his eyes. She remembers the feeling perfectly when she watched him take his markings many years ago. Just like he became someone else in that moment, so too has she. The markings seem to be the final brush strokes of his image of reality; that she truly is here with him and will always be, and that a lifetime spent searching and regretting his decisions is absolved.

_You,_ he warbles, “Lanaai,” the sound comes from between his teeth because his jaw does not wish to cooperate. She cocks her head slightly in confusion. His talon rests lightly on the additional mark on her nose, and he swallows nervously.

_Spirit-rendered,_ “You were given to us by the cosmic machinery. Inevitable,” he murmurs and then traces his talon along the line on her chin.

_Paragon of truth,_ “Beyond knowable limitation,” he finishes.

Those two markings mean all of that? She had no idea he actually _knew what they meant._ she, like most turians, sure as hell does not know what her own chapters mean. Now the pressure mounts to explore the intricate and extensive _seravim_ that covers her mate while she does her best not to succumb to his silky voice and melt.

Then, once she is quivering and ready, he could pick her up with his strong arms and- _Thank you, aivo,_ “Thanks for doing this for me, Garrus. I remember I… when we watched you receive your markings I wanted to know what it felt like…”

_I can’t believe this is real,_ “Even though I want to kill her… I’ll have to go thank Agent Litha for bringing you back to me, L- Lanaai,” _I can’t believe it,_ he leans forward again and connects their crests.

_Believe it,_ “Better believe it, sister,” she razzes and pushes back this time, remaining in control, smiling as he leans back and pulls her down with him.

_You are so beautiful,_ he uses the subharmonic for beauty which connotes both internal and external – that her entire existence is a beautiful thing – “I just want you to know that I found you beautiful before you-”

_Hush, aivo,_ “Hold that thought. Cast it aside. Don’t let your mind go back there. It’s over. I wasn’t happy where I was. This is what I wanted, this is what I want,” _what I need,_ “Now, we have several options, two of which: we can either rut until my plates are cracked, or we can get out of the nest and be productive. Take your pick, or make something up,”

_Why not both?_ he subharmonics drip with seduction.

“You’ll smudge my new markings,” _they are perfect,_ she gripes back at him playfully. Lanaai is partially serious, however, and very much wishes to keep his work perfectly spotless for the rest of the cycle. He can smudge them all he wants before they drop off to sleep at the end of their shifts.

“Good point. Plus I need to be able to walk,” _as much as I want to devour you,_ he drawls and pulls himself from the nest. She takes his hand and he easily pulls her up as if she weighs nothing. She takes a moment to gawk and revel in the marvel that is his body again, focusing on his chapters and considering what they could possibly mean. She feels ready to take on the galaxy now, as one half of a much stronger individual. Where they were independently powerful before, they are now indomitable.

At the very least, the crew seems to approve of their union. She receives several congratulatory chest-bumps from some of Garrus’ old squadmates and their recent additions when she walks forth bearing the Vakarian wings proudly on her visage where they belong. When they finally meet up again at the end of their daily schedules, they review their itinerary for their trip to Palaven. She may be terrified of meeting his family, but she will not back down from it. They deserve to see him this content and satisfied. They deserve to _see_ him.


	40. Chapter 40

They travel to Garrus’ birthplace in _Verridan_ where his parents have returned to help their clan rebuild what was burned in the war. The auditors trailing them do not make any effort to remain discreet. In fact, one of the three introduces himself without providing them a name and thanks them for their efforts to prepare and defend the turian specie, both during the war and in their short tour following it. Few people truly know who Garrus and Lanaai are, but these auditors have been with them at virtually every footfall and trigger pull. They know how the war effort was significantly improved by Garrus’ hard work and early calls to action.

Garrus has yet to tell his parents that he is going to be there and the only reason he knows where they are is because he requested their status and the Hierarchy actually provided it this time. His recent elevation to Tier 1 must have finally provided him enough pull to gain access to that information.

They have not communicated in years, but he has to announce himself to them as a courtesy. His parents will have mixed reactions about an unexpected visit, even if by their own son. He looks up from his omni-tool at Lanaai, who sits quietly across from him gazing out at the stars flowing past like oil, shifting hues from blue to red. The Vakarian markings on her face remind him why he is about to open up the message terminal and contact his family for the first time in many years.

I’m coming home. Let me know where to find you.

– Garrus  


He sends the message to both his parents, worries about Solana for a moment, and then returns his gaze to Lanaai.

_Here,_ he trills without thinking about it. Her body reacts first, standing up seemingly without her noticing, before she turns her eyes to meet his. She settles down at his side and leans her head against the soft padding of his compression suit, soaking in his warmth.

“I’m glad we’re going to see them,” _after all this time,_ he quips.

_They deserve it,_ “I’m glad you’ll be there to shield me from them,” she replies, sounding halfway between humorous and serious.

_Unfortunate,_ “Do you wish it were Bridge?” she asks and pulls her head from his shoulder to look up at him.

_Home is not a place,_ “Sometimes. Not sure if anyone has made an effort to raise it yet. Maybe we can start that effort. Then… maybe the Hierarchy will let us settle down.”

Lanaai snorts, _unlikely in all forms,_ “While I’m sure they’d appreciate our offer to help… I can’t imagine settling down. I don’t know what I’d do all day,” _without being productive._

Garrus smirks at her, _same here,_ “Semantics… I mean a place to set up our base of operations.”

_That’s more like it,_ “Yeah, I’ll look into that.”

_They will do as you ask,_ “If the Hierarchy gives you trouble…” he clears his throat, “then I know a few people.”

Lanaai smiles and places her head onto his shoulder again. He spoke the last comment with a mirthful tone, but he is not lying about knowing people. The crew he has amassed and the connections from Special Forces are all very powerful. Many more are indebted to him permanently for his early warnings and the payoff it provided, including the Primarchs of Palaven, Taetrus, and Invictus, to name a few. Garrus is on the same tier as his father, and they are both on first-names with the Primarch himself. He can make a polite request and expect the Hierarchy to fulfill it, with several exceptions… like the damned auditors.

_Verridan_ is cold. So many years in conditioned environments have all but erased his memory of cold weather. Bridge had cold winters; it all comes back to him, and the familiarity of this place in the absence of memories to describe it makes him uneasy. After spending the night at a local hostel they venture forth into the wintry morning. Lanaai keeps herself close to his side but keeps her arms to herself, wishing to remain somewhat discreet out here. She chose to paint on the Acronus markings today in an attempt to keep the alarms down. He wishes he did not have to agree with her about this because, quite frankly, he _loves_ painting her face with his color. His parents need to meet her first and arrive at the news – not the other way around.

The destruction from the war has been mostly healed in this city, physically at least. Drone teams deployed soon after the reapers lost power and began to rebuild what they could, but agriculture was slow to restart after so much soil and greenhouse plantations were burned and destroyed. A towering reaper carcass still lies in the distance, gouged and carved by kinetic damage from accelerator rounds, and will provide a sordid reminder of the war for many years to come unless they manage to move it off-world or break it apart.

The entire planet is short on food right now, so prices are very high for very simple items and everything is under rationing restrictions. The Hierarchy is still fixing the price of several basic items so that anyone can afford them, and sending out adjudicators to enforce this rule with incredible aggressiveness. They also make sure those who do not have enough are able to receive priority, and those who have far too much are donating to those in need. Garrus does not know what his parents are doing specifically, but he assumes that they are also helping to resolve the food shortages.

_We welcome you home, son. Meet us at Block 1Δ, Building A, Suite 1C. We anticipate your arrival. We have catching up to do. Come in, the door will be ajar.

– CV, AV_

_Well then,_ “Looks we can stop loitering now and go find them,” he trills and closes his omni-tool. Lanaai looks up from her datapad and sets down her Taetran, staring into the distance pensively.

_Let’s go,_ “Wouldn’t want to keep them waiting, then,” she rises from the booth and returns to his side as they walk from the quaint café.

Block 1Δ is quite close already, so they take their time and make each step deliberate. They are both attempting to postpone the inevitable, because neither knows how is parents will react to _her,_ and to _them._ Garrus expects them to be happy for him once they see how happy she makes him. Lanaai has expressed worry that her appearance and her mannerisms will come across poorly and ruin the chances of a good standing with them, even though she drifts farther from… from Lia with each passing cycle. Bonding was the proverbial “final nail in the coffin” her Lia that has catalyzed the rest of her transformation. The problem biting at his spurs now is that Lanaai is rarely wrong. He hopes to the spirits that she is wrong about this, just this one time.

The anticipation mounts as they enter the building and navigate through its hallways to find suite 1C. The individuals they pass by on the way there nod respectfully to Garrus, whom they recognize as an ally or, in some cases, a member of their clan. They also stare at his mate with these confused expressions and he hears a few questioning trills. Already he begins to fear that she was right based on these reactions – but why is it so?

_1C._ The door is ajar

They stop and she looks up nervously, _I’m nervous._

“You conquered the reapers,” _you’ll live._

She snorts and shakes her head, _I’ve a bad feeling._

Garrus leans down and presses his crown against hers to calm her… and himself. He raps his knuckles against the plain metal door and pushes it aside. Within seconds his mother is upon him, pulling him into a tight embrace and pressing her forehead against his.

_My little boy!_ “Welcome back, Garrus. We’ve missed you,” _oh spirits, how we’ve missed you. I’m so happy,_ she trills and chirps, always the queen of embarrassing him. But he responds all the same, because it is true, _I’ve missed you, mom. I was so worried._

She lets him go and takes step back, finally noticing Lanaai standing nearby. His mother cocks her head and glances between himself and his mate.

_A guest?_ “You didn’t tell us you were bringing a… guest,” she says, sounding skeptical. Garrus’ mandibles droop because he already begins to believe in Lanaai’s predictions.

_Sorry,_ he rumbles, “Apologies, this is Distinguished Captain of the Hierarchy, Lanaai Acronus.”

_Oh,_ “Welcome, Captain. Please come in so we can prepare you a drink.”

_Thank you, I appreciate it,_ she chirps back.

His father appears in the doorway and his chest swells as they lock eyes. He says nothing and steps out of the way as his mother ushers them into their suite, but he can hear the soft warbling as they pass by. Castis’ eyes linger on his for a little longer than normal, and Garrus wonders if he can see the repaired plates on the right side of his face. His father seems like he is putting forth quite the effort to keep his pupils from giving away the true direction of his focus; turians have an enormous fovea, but they still prefer to center their gaze.

Lanaai glances up at his father and bows her head respectfully only to be met with a curt nod. Garrus frowns, and pulls her closer to him. His parents probably already know – in all his years he has never brought home a female to join them for an event or a visit. His parents disappear into the small kitchenette to prepare them all some drinks, leaving them alone for a moment.

They take a seat in the quaint, undersized mainroom of the suite. Despite their tier, his parents are staying in accommodations just barely large-enough for themselves and maybe one or two guests. The space they have is personalized with trinkets that he remembers from his youth, and shockingly, the _Terminus,_ which sits comfortably atop a custom-built stand he does not remember. He glances down at Lanaai who is eyeballing the model and thinking heavily. He spots his guitar in the other corner… spirits, why did he let the music go? How did they manage to keep that?

_You should play,_ she buzzes to him quietly, “I would love to hear it. I really would,” she looks down pensively at her fingers and flexes them experimentally, _not enough fingers,_ she scowls. She must be referring to the piano. He barely remembers that she used to play.

The elder Vakarians return and place a tray down on the table that separates the two couples. They stare at each other for a moment before his father breaks the silence.

_I am overwhelmed,_ “I did not think I would see you again, Garrus,” _my son, my pride,_ “I suppose no words can possibly thank you enough for what you did for the Hierarchy… if we had not been listening then I’m sure we would not be here right now.”

_There’s many of us,_ “It wasn’t just me…” he glances at Lanaai for a moment, “You can thank Shepard for her work-”

_Spirits hold her,_ both of his parents chorus quietly.

“-we would have been lost without it. We’ve worked with many instrumental individuals in the right places. You can also thank Lanaai. She was looking into the disappearances at the same time as I was, and she worked nonstop with us to make sure we were making progress.”

_Did she,_ his mother raises her brows, sounding skeptical. Please do not let Lanaai be right.

_I can leave,_ “I’m sorry… I can take a moment. I feel like I’m intruding on your reunion,” Lanaai bows her head and looks at the floor. Garrus puts his hand on her leg to still her before she can train-wreck her way out of this.

_No, no,_ his father chirps quickly, “Please, any friend of Garrus’ is a friend of ours as well. We haven’t seen our boy in many years so we’re still reeling,” _reeling indeed,_ he hears the words, but they do not seem to carry the intent that his father attempted. So far both of his parents have been unusually hostile towards his mate and it is beginning to bother him, especially when seeing just how uncomfortable it makes Lanaai. They treated Shepard like a second daughter – receiving this treatment from them must be incredibly jarring to her.

“How did you get out?” _from the fire,_ Garrus asks, “Did Jess… have you heard from her?”

_Careful,_ his father admonishes.

_Dear spirits,_ his mother accompanies, “We left Bridge shorty after… shortly after we heard about Lia,” and again they chorus, this time including his own subharmonics, _spirits hold her._

“Jess… she, disappeared and we don’t know where she went. She said she was moving on to work elsewhere and we let her go. We had postings that required our attention so we took off and took up work in Cipritine.”

Lanaai tenses up next to him at the mention of her mother, so Garrus tightens his grip on her thigh reassuringly.

“When those abominations broke atmosphere and began razing the capitol, we were able to make it out… the Hierarchy decided to post us out of combat reach to help with this… weapon that everyone was talking about,” _incredibly lucky._

“Sounds familiar,” _too many bad memories,_ he grumbles.

_And my sister?_ “Solana? Is she well?” he asks. He knows Solana is alive but he wants to hear it directly from his parents, who will have more information than her coordinates and her status. He wants to know if they have managed to keep in contact with her amid this calamity. He feels guilty that the did not attempt to contact her himself, but after he graduated Accen he really drifted away from his family.

“Solana is doing fine. She seems content with whatever the Hierarchy has her working on. She talks with us occasionally, when she has buoy access,” _not enough,_ his father replies. He keeps watching his mother’s eyes flick between Lanaai and himself while his father fields the conversation.

_What is she up to?_ “I’m glad she’s been able to reach you. It was difficult enough for me… even with my rank and tier.”

He finally decides that he has had enough of this dancing around the issue. He has a female at his side wearing his scent all over herself, with a damned _notch._ Before he can broach the subject, his father takes the ball away from him and hands it right to Lanaai.

_And yourself,_ he addresses Garrus’ mate, “I’m interested in learning a bit about you, Captain. Everyone has a survival story… if you don’t mind, what is yours like?”

Lanaai raises her brows and begins to think up a proper response, likely trying too hard to say something impressive.

“I was hunting the reapers about the same time Garrus was,” _abominable creatures,_ “After the accident… Command assigned Garrus’ team to my ship, which is how I met him. When we began working on the weapon, I found myself putting my engineering-focused training to use.”

_Is that so?_ “So how much do you know about this weapon?” his mother asks, leaning forward. He remembers that Lanaai had Avita’s firm contracted specifically to help with the preparation, albeit with some obfuscation. However, his mother asked the question with the disbelief that usually accompanies conversation regarding Lanaai’s engineering experience. His mother is stereotyping her, just as everyone else has, and he feels betrayed.

_Too much,_ Lanaai leans back, glances out the window, and allows the expanse of sky to calm her while her mind projects itself outwards. He can feel her turn over the entirety of _Apophis_ in her head while flashes of the calibration data spark in his own.

“I know everything,” she replies simply, “And so does Garrus. Is there something in particular? If it is about the field theory then Garrus will have to handle that – but I know how to rebuild it. From scratch.”

_That’s unbelievable,_ his mother scoffs.

_It’s true,_ Garrus chuffs, “She isn’t lying.”

_Impressive, then,_ “We’re grateful for both of your efforts to bring an end to those genocidal monstrosities,” his father glares at Avita and takes the reigns of the conversation once more, “I’m sure I can speak for all of us and say that I’m relieved it is over.”

Garrus considers the statement and remembers what the reaper said – they may have disabled the problem for now, but how long will it take until their own civilization produces a machine so advanced, that a new wave of reapers will take hold. They were already bested using _Apophis…_ he assumes that the “next generation” of “peacekeepers” would have protection against their existing weapon and they would simply have no time to react accordingly.

_Yeah,_ he replies, his voice sounding dry and wary.

_How about here?_ he changes the subject, “How has your period been, or section? What are you working on around here?”

_Leading, directing,_ “We’re mostly in charge of logistics and design,” his mother says, sounding more relaxed now that she has something concrete to speak about, “We spend half our day operating the drones like everyone else, putting in our hours, then we move onto headquarters to coordinate maneuvers,” _your father does,_ “and improve upon our machinery,” _as I do._

Garrus leans in, falling prey to the intrigue over the mention of design. Lanaai bristles, and he can tell she finds the reminder of her past unsettling… of _Lanaai’s_ past. Her father – the turian she remembers – died while piloting a drone. Still, she shakes off the sentiment and speaks with the same relaxed confidence that she always has.

_I’m interested,_ “Improvements? What has your hands dirty as of late?” Lanaai asks. His mother fixes her with a confused look before speaking again.

_It’s quite technical,_ “I don’t want to bore you with all the technical details…”

Lanaai casts her gaze downward, as if that was the response she expected. She really is not winning any ground here, and his parents truly believe that her beauty or her lineage make her incapable of being the genuinely intelligent woman she is. It is the last thing he expected from them, especially when his mother comes from similar stereotypes, and has even denounced it. She should be incredibly empathetic to Lanaai, but perhaps she has forgotten what that feels like. When a Varai-Vakarian walks into the room people bow in respect regardless of how beautiful they might _look_. Garrus supposes that once Lanaai wears the Vakarian markings that she too can leave behind the judgmental and overly-appraising looks of pleasure-seekers and tail-hunters… except his parents will still see her as total outsider.

“We have a long road ahead of us,” _uphill,_ Lanaai says quietly, leaning back into the seat and maintaining her distance from himself.

They sit in an uncomfortable silence for a moment before Garrus decides to make his announcement and get it over with. He sighs and wished that this interaction was not so tense and awkward.

“I can tell you’re wondering my the Captain of our task force is with me,” _surprise,_ “I wanted to introduce you to my bonded one” _aiva of mine,_ “and welcome her into the family.”

His mother chokes on her tea. His father remains quiet as if he already knew.

_I’m…_ “Congratulations to you both,” Castis just does not sound genuine and it breaks his heart.

_Oh,_ Lanaai’s mandibles droop. She knows him so well that she can easily detect his “negotiator voice:” the one he normally uses to navigate his way through an unpleasant topic.

_What’s wrong?_ Garrus buzzes, almost demanding, despite already knowing the answer.

_Nothing, child,_ his father replies with the same tone, “We’re happy that you found a woman who can make you happy. And likewise, Captain Acronus.”

_Please,_ “Lanaai, we’re not on duty right now,” she speaks with a hollow voice and sounds like she is about ready to cry. Garrus pulls her closer to him, hoping to give her his strength. This is going just as horribly as she told him it would, and he does not understand why. He sighs and shakes his head.

_I’m sorry,_ “Look, I can come back some other time, I guess we’re all exhausted,” he stands up and Lanaai mirrors, keeping her hand on his bracer. His parents stand up, but more in protest.

_Wait,_ he hears his father chirp as he begins to leave the building.

_You’ve upset her, I cannot believe it,_ he fires back, resolve solidifying, feeling driven to leave them before he becomes truly furious. Neither of his parents pursue them as they leave and begin to walk back to their ship in silence. He keeps his grip on her arm tight so he can keep her body close to his. Neither of them speak until they reach their room in the hostel, and both are too distraught to care about the auditors trailing them.

Luckily, they are left alone once they enter their room. Garrus spins Lanaai around to face him and lifts her against the door after it shuts behind them, guiding her legs around his hips and pressing his forehead firmly against hers. He can feel her pain from out here, but he cannot take it from her because he feels the same.

She warbles. Spirits why did she have to be right?

_Why?_ her voice is small, accented.

_I don’t know,_ he genuinely has no answer for her. He always took for granted his parents’ approval and trust in his choices, but the years apart must have changed something. Although, he did not give them much of a chance to explain themselves. He knows he is going to have to go back there and face them down himself, because he will be unable to let this go until he has resolution.

“There is no victory or defeat, Lanaai…” _aiva._

_Isn’t there?_ she replies, sounding skeptical, “Then why fight?”

_It’ll pass, aiva,_ “As much as I feel betrayed… I know they have secrets. They are intelligent… they have a reason. I know they didn’t tell us everything when we were little,” _for our safety._

Lanaai leans buries her head into his neck and keens, _it hurts no less,_ “I didn’t think it would feel so terrible… I should know better…” she sobs once and looks back up at him from her pinned position.

_You’re still here, aivo,_ “I have enough to be grateful for,” she cranes her neck so she can press her crown against his again. A purr bubbles up through his throat then deepens into his chest. Her legs tighten around his waist when he attempts to set her down, so he navigates the two of them over to the nest despite their fully-armored state. He can tell she is not in the mood for a rut or even an intimate interlocking of bodies, she simply desires the sense of safety that only he can provide. He will happily oblige as the dutiful mate he wishes to be.

_Allow me?_ “Let me help you out of your armor,” he purrs to her, not because he thinks she is incapable, but because he wants to dote on her and take her mind off the present. He feels the sensation grab hold of him and string him along like a marionette until he is comfortably wrapped around her in the nest, stroking her fringes and waist. Eventually she spins herself around and curls her spine, slipping her legs around his waist and pushing her muzzle into his neck. He wills his plates to soften for her and let her sink in.

It is still the middle of the day, so they do not end up sleeping, but they remain in their quiet embrace for some time before Lanaai releases him with the intent to leave the nest. Garrus stands them up and separates from her, looking over his mate’s body lovingly. It reminds him that he needs to schedule an extended appointment with the scribe to get her some proper chapters – she deserves to wear her many accomplishments on her plates proudly. In cobalt… the truest hue and value in his _unbiased_ opinion.

_What do you see?_ “I want to put on my undersuit and armor, but I’d hate to deny your concentration…” she cracks a crooked smile at him.

_A map,_ “Imagine…” he takes a step closer to her so he can trace the invisible outlines onto her plates. _Goddess_ his talon approximates the form and she shivers, _spirit,_ and again, _protector,_ once more, _creator, savior, family of Vakarian, blooded by Varai… bonded one… walked through hell itself… ended the apocalypse…_ The map becomes clearer and clearer in his mind until he can read every marking and interpret every symbol. Her map is elegant and extensive.

“Garrus?” he hears and jolts out of his trance.

_Huh?_ “I’m sorry… I…”, _woah,_ he notices that their positions have shifted from standing on the floor beside the raised nesting encasement to reclining in the nest itself. He is kneeling, bent over her, with her legs draped around his waist and her rear propped up on his quadriceps. His guideplates twitch as they seem to realize the proximity.

She is _covered_ with paint; with _his_ color. A brush balances between his fingers, and a jar of Cobalt is cupped by the other. He is not sure how he arrived here.

“You can keep going, I don’t mind,” _Your voice, your touch, your actions, all pleasing,_ she purrs.

“Wow… what the hell?” he sets down the items in his hands, stands up, and cocks his head, “It’s been quite some time since _that_ has happened,” _I’m mildly worried._ He stares at the chapters that he must have written, and realizes he just fell prey to one of those trance-like states he used to have when he was young.

She chuckles, _you’re genuinely you,_ and he is happy to see her smiling after such a shipwreck of an encounter with his family, “we’ll go see a scribe. You seem to know exactly what must be written. I will be your canvas.”

_Spirits,_ he notes the flirtatious tone of her voice, “I’ll wrangle another appointment…” _you already know about-_

_Yes,_ she chirps in reply to his rising question.

“Alright, but first I’m going to speak with my parents,” _I am determined to know why,_ his brows tighten and furrow at the thought of speaking with them.

“I’ll let you go and order Third for takeout,” _because you’ll need it,_ she nods her head and grazes his mandibles with hers. Garrus turns and heads for the door while Lanaai returns to the desk to pick up her datapad to casually browse the now-fully-restored intranet.

_Good luck, aivo, spirits hold you,_ she purrs.

_I will return. Spirits hold you, aiva,_ “Looking forward to Third, spar and Third if you like. Try to ignore the damn auditors,” he makes sure to reply, devouring her painted form with his eyes one last time before heading out.

It does not take long to reach his parents’ suite again, and the door is still ajar as if they knew he would come back. He checks his omni-tool to see if they sent him anything and he only finds the usual… hundreds of messages from his subordinates and various professional acquaintances, but none from _them_. He pushes the door open and winds his way into the mainroom to take a seat on the couch. His mother pauses in the doorway to the kitchen when she sees him sitting there.

_You returned,_ she chirps, sounding infinitely relieved.

_I did,_ “I want you to explain what that was about and then I’ll make up my mind whether or not I want to talk to you again,” he states confidently, like it is the truth. The way his mother winces causes him to regret his phrasing.

“Garrus, who was that?” _tell me,_ she looks nervous.

_What does that mean?_ “What are you asking for? She is the reason why we won this war against the reapers. She is my _bondmate._ ”

_Is she?_ “I don’t want you to rush into bonding because you were blinded by her pretty appearance or how nicely she can sate you.”

His fingers clench, but he reminds himself that she knows nothing about his mate.

_What is this attitude?_ “Didn’t you deal with this when you were younger? I’ve worked with her for several years. Am I not allowed to know someone for that long and trust in their ability to make me happy? I know her, you don’t,” _hypocrite._

_Watch your tone,_ “Then I don’t know what to tell you. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’ve met her before, or that she knows information about you or my family that she has no right to know. Like an…” _impostor,_ “Is she an auditor? Is _she_ why you’ve been impossible reach? Garrus we have rules about getting involved with auditors.”

_What?_ Garrus’ subharmonics spasm.

Lanaai was one hundred percent right. It stings.

_She’s right,_ his father rumbles deeply as he walks in from the hallway, “Your ‘mate’ shows every sign that she is genetically and mentally engineered to prey on individuals like you. Like _us._ I would rather die than see my son,” _my boy,_ “fall for such a thing. I haven’t placed an acquisition request with Command yet, but I have it ready to send.”

Garrus may never convince them otherwise if they completely believe that this is true… and to an extent it is, but he knows better. He is already facing an uphill struggle, and the fact that this hits so close to his heart is wearing his patience thin already.

“How could you say that?” _explain,_ he gripes, “Since when does appearance matter? You sure cared a lot about _Lia,_ ” he spits, “would you have approved if I brought _her_ home instead? She wasn’t even _turian._ ”

_Silence!_ his father barks, “don’t you bring her down from the Spirits to serve your anger!”

Both of his parents looked totally shocked that he would say such a thing. He regrets saying it immediately. Castis continues, lowering his voice again, calming down quickly.

“‘Appearance’ has several meanings,” _not the one you think,_ “the Captain has no blemishes, perfect symmetry, and generally desirable traits wherever they may appear. That’s fine – your mother is the same. However, her plates look as if she was born yesterday with no signs of age or weathering. No divots, nicks, scuffs, burrs… even sheen across every visible surface. Even the most vain of our people cannot prevent the subtle map of enamel discolorations and imperfections with age,” he stares at Garrus intently while he speaks, looking more worried than upset. He sounds like a different man, as if he is giving a formal report of a suspect. Garrus has never encountered this side of his father.

“In my line of work – which I now feel I can speak about with you… now that you have auditors trailing your steps and a potential predator in your nest – individuals with these qualities have undergone heavy modifications. In the same way you can usually tell when a vid has been faked, _I_ can tell when a person has been altered…” _like you,_ his father lowers his head and steps closer.

_My poor child,_ Garrus watches his father trace the outline of the repaired plates on his face, “What happened to you?” _my son._

_What?_ his mother chirps in worry and stands abruptly, unable to notice the perfect reproduction of his plates like his father can.

_His story, aiva,_ his father replies, “we’ll hear it from him when he wishes to tell us. Anyway, the chance that anyone naturally looks like she does is statistically unlikely… and couple that with the fact that she ascended to the rank of Distinguished Captain in what seems like a vacuum. _I_ certainly haven’t heard of her, and I should because she is Captain – _Distinguished_ Captain – of a Blackwatch fleet. I know _all_ of them.”

He pauses for breath before continuing his lecture, _one more thing,_ “Her markings are either false, or she is the last left of a small, colony family. I realize that a lot of families did not survive the war, but I don’t want you to make the mistake of letting her use you for your tier or your name.”

_But you don’t know her,_ “I get it. Your observations may be precise, but I _know_ her. That bothered me too at first, but she…” he shakes his head as he responds firmly.

These may all be shockingly-valid points but that does make them true. He cannot explain to them that Lanaai is exactly as his father has described: a biological anomaly who was built to be perfect and retain her appearance through whatever fire and smoke she may face. They would never believe him just as anyone else would never believe her. The men and women who brought her back only know the truth because they witnessed it, but Garrus is the _only_ one who can believe her by her word alone.

He can speak about her identity as a turian. He knows her as the turian she truly is.

“She’ll bring it up when she’s ready, but she was… injured,” _very badly,_ he says simply, “she mentioned an accident… she does not like speaking about it.”

“Garrus,” _my son, listen to me,_ “I trust your intelligence, but you are young. I have been trained to spot engineered identities and I have a propensity for it that keeps me employed long into my sun-setting years. I have witnessed – first-hand, mind you – horrendous accounts of betrayal from men and women – turians – who put on an identity, earn the trust of their crew… their friends… their _mate,_ and once they have what they want they bring it all down,” _I cannot let you suffer that fate._

_Not her,_ “She is one of a kind… I take few things for granted, but I know that she is genuine. And you need to trust me because I can’t really properly explain the reasons _why_ I know,” _because no one would believe me._

_Not true,_ his father replies, his voice significantly softer now, “We took your word about the reapers…”

_Really,_ he drawls and fights the urge to roll his eyes, _did you._

“Garrus…” _watch your tone,_ he admonishes.

His father means well, but even the reapers are more plausible than building a body from scratch and transferring two sets of memories into it; bringing two people back from the spirits. The concept of “kill or be killed” is simple and requires little further explanation, regardless of the forms taken by predator and prey, but the concept that death is not final is universally impossible to understand.

His father regards him for a moment before raising his talon to his chin, _although,_ “I suppose an auditor on your crew would have noticed and said something by now, so maybe…”

His parents look at him for a while as if to check his authenticity before his mother speaks again.

_We will try,_ “For you,” _my son,_ “we will attempt to overlook ourselves… but we may never be able to, especially your father. Perhaps time will cure it for us… but only in her case, and only because we trust you with our hearts and minds. How about we meet up for spar and Second tomorrow and we’ll start over.”

Garrus sighs and supposes that is the best response he can hope for at the moment.

_Sure,_ “I’ll see what she wants to do,” _probably agree,_ he stands up and heads to the door.

_Goodbye, my son,_ they both chirp.

_Until later,_ he responds quietly and shuts the door behind him.

Lanaai puts down her datapad and strides over to greet him as soon as he steps across the threshold of their room. He purrs when she stands up on her toes and cranes her neck to place her crown against his. A profound feeling of love flows through the point of contact.

“I’m sorry I had to wash off your beautiful work to-”

_You were right,_ “you were completely right,” he sighs without lifting his forehead away from hers.

_What?_ she trills.

“You said you thought they would find you uncomfortably familiar… mom said just that. Dad… well he can tell you were… _built._ He noticed my ‘repairs’ as well. Apparently he is some kind of spotter or arbiter for false identities, like an auditor” _not surprised.

_Neither am I,_ she echoes, “Well…” _they aren’t wrong…_

_I know,_ “That’s the unfortunate part. But telling them… you know…” _everything,_ “is just not an option. They think you must be some kind of siren designed to lure me to my death. Dad said he’s personally witnessed this. I can understand if he wants me to be cautious. I just wonder what else he has always hid from me,” _I question my trust._

Lanaai’s mandibles flatten against her jaw, _I empathize,_ “Whatever he hasn’t told you is because he’s trying to protect you and Avita. Remember who you’re talking to,” _I am a liar._

Garrus sighs, _one perspective,_ “Yeah, I remember.”

Lanaai tilts her head, baring her neck, _it’s my fault,_ “It’s not their fault. It was a mistake to make me… look perfect, at least.”

_Blasphemy!_ “ _I_ certainly don’t mind it, Lanaai. They just don’t know you yet. You know I felt uneasy around you at first for the same reason mom does, and look where we are now.”

She takes a step back and plants her arms on her hips, “yeah well that was because I told you-”

_Not true,_ “You know I had to love you and trust with all my heart before I would be ready to believe that they brought you back. You _know_ that, because I _felt_ it when I woke up from my short, surprise journey from one side of the battery to the other.”

_Don’t joke about that,_ she scowls, “you’re right. Hopefully we’ll smooth this over.”

“Be hopeful, but not for _if_ it will happen, but _when._ Speaking of which, we get a second chance tomorrow - we’re joining them for spar and Second.”

_Very funny,_ Lanaai groans and then sighs, _alright,_ “Right… a _second_ chance at _Second._ I’ll accept the olive branch.”

_Thank you,_ he purrs, “that’s my girl,” _aiva._

She chirps and turns towards the kitchenette, _food!_ “I got Third! Let’s cram-it before it gets cold. I have no idea what it is because they just _gave_ it to me, but it smells _amazing,_ ” _my mouth waters._

Garrus grins and follows her, and picks up the scent of something delectable just before noticing the foil container on the small table. Suddenly they are both young again, and any preoccupations he had ten seconds ago float away.


	41. Chapter 41

It hurts… oh spirits it hurts. Lanaai can feel his pain when her mate wraps her around his waist and creates one individual out of two halves. They check out for a while before she recovers enough to feel ready to pick up her life and move on. Garrus is right: there is no victory or defeat. This is simply how reality is shaped for her; inclusions and imperfections in it are an inevitability, even if she lacks any in her appearance.

The pain from feeling so betrayed wears off quickly and gives way to empathy… but the icy fingers of the void pull away her manufactured identity to leave nothing behind. Castis and Avita have every right to feel offended by her perfect features and overwhelmingly-familiar mannerisms. A lifetime of training would never take away the girl they knew and practically raised, not unless Litha had decided to be “more selective” with her reconstruction of memories.

Garrus’ patience with her and his understanding of all parties involved with this exchange makes all the difference in the universe. She is upset, but she knows that he is here to lean on, and having one thing to take for granted keeps her grounded. She cannot hold his parents’ skepticism and judgment against them, but she would still like to know their reasoning so she can subvert their preconceptions about her more effectively. She wants to win them back even if it may not be possible.

But then Garrus goes into a mode and after she catches him staring at her perfectly-coated, entirely-smooth, and mostly-blank plates. Lanaai only remembers him doing this when they were very young and he became absorbed into a complex engineering or math problem. She does not know if he has any intact memories from these, mostly because she never said anything to him. She mostly kept quiet so she could observe and watch over him while his mind transcended to some other-worldly realm. It has been many years since an event like this, but it immediately brings back her old instincts.

This is vastly different, however, because the subject matter is _herself._

Any remaining sound in his vocals trail off leaving only his subharmonics behind, and eventually even those cease to form intelligible words. His eyes are wide and unblinking as he stands before her and traces his talons across her chest while his mandibles quiver. He takes a step forward and she takes a step back, so he takes another step forward until they reach the nest. She knows what he wants, and luckily she just happens to have a jar of Vakarian Cobalt on the encasement with a brush set. He finds immense satisfaction in the ritual of painting on her temporary markings – Acronus or Vakarian – so she makes sure to keep the resources easily available.

She reaches back to grab him the jar and a brush, and he slowly receives both without taking his eyes off her plates. She concedes to recline into the nest and let him continue his ministrations. She finds it more fascinating and humbling than arousing or intimate. Garrus lowers the brush into the pigment and carefully pulls the bristles across her unmarked _atlus_ plate. She holds still while she focuses on the precise motions of his arms as he loads more pigment into the brush and lays down another stroke next to it. The consistency is perfect because he knows the exact curvature of her plates. He continues with this process while she patiently observes.

Lanaai realizes that he is creating a map of her identity as he interprets it, a subject so dear to him that he has already lost himself in it. He made her once, and he is dedicated to making her again by designing and organizing a hybrid identity: one that represents both who she was and who she is to him. She wants him to do so, because her meager decoration represents someone else’s life – the “lie” that she fed to him – whereas his map of her is the truth. She will let him mark her however he pleases because he understands her better than she does herself, and whatever he chooses to inscribe into her plates will be as much a depiction of her mind as it is of his.

To some extent, she envies how Garrus’ markings have time etched into them as much as beauty. She cannot have what he has, but she can emulate it and feel connected to him in a way no one else could ever be… that she knows of. “Verbose” turians like Garrus usually have little space left to detail their lives as bonded due to timing, coincidence, and prior sentimental attachment. She does not expect his chapter about to her to take up a lot of space, if the small, suspiciously-blank patch on his _seros_ plate is anything to go by. However, she is mostly blank, so he can quite literally design her however he sees fit. _Anything._

She tries to picture what he sees, but he eludes her. Eventually she says his name and he snaps out of his state. She regrets it. She should have let him proceed until he was completely finished and rise on his own, because now he looks displeased with himself. He apologizes… of all things. He wears surprise and confusion at first, but soon enough his expression begins to heat up. He talks himself out of the room before she can think to ask him to rut her in half.

Garrus returns to confront his parents in private, leaving her by herself. She pads to the washroom and examines herself in the mirror so she may admire the artistry that adorns her plates. This is precious, and she will attempt to avoid washing it off for as long as she can.

Arousal pummels her core suddenly as she replays the last half-hour in her head. Her guardplates splay and her sheath becomes slick, as if her body expects his to be there to take it. She grunts and spreads her legs slightly to keep the guards from painfully digging in to her thighs. Lanaai finds herself disappointed that neither of them had the right mind to rut themselves apart; she was too busy studying him to find anything romantic about the most intimate thing that he has ever done for her. She tightly grips the counter top in the small washroom and waits for this to pass.

After she regains control over herself, she huffs and remembers that she promised Garrus that she would pick up Third. With no small amount of disappointment, she enters the shower and washes away his amazing work so that she can get into a compression suit without smudging the Cobalt all over the place and staining the material.

She nods to the auditor as she leaves the suite and walks out into the cold afternoon. Garrus’ palette has ancestry here, so the food will bring him home just as much as she can. The only problem now is that, despite knowing all of his favorites, second favorites, and third favorites from their lives on Bridge, she has no idea what _local_ items he likes. In fact, she does not know much about Novataetran cuisine… or even the language for that matter. Perhaps one of these local stores will be able to recommend something.

The colder weather here gives her an excuse to wear a scarf and a wrap which can hide her face and keep her away from attention. The predictable reactions grew old quite quickly, and the only reason she does not wear a helmet around her peers is because they have grown used to her. She has considered asking Litha to do something about it, but she cannot bring herself to. Garrus deserves no less than perfection. She glances at her omni-tool occasionally to keep track of her location as she walks through the quaint and mostly-rebuilt town center. She occasionally checks the camera feed from one of her rear-facing armor cameras just to monitor the location of the auditor… _still there, of course._

She enters the butcher’s shop on the corner, which seems to be the only one in the area, and takes a moment to adjust to the assault on her senses. So many scents foreign to her and so heavy in the air as well… she supposes this must be part of the marketing strategy because there is no way she will leave without purchasing something from the counter. The interior of the shop is clean and crisp despite its nature, but the earthen tones incorporated into the architecture make it feel warmer. All manner of items sit pre-prepared on shelves that line the walls. It looks recently-built, but a blackened section of wall only barely covered with sheet metal reveals its history with the war.

_Welcome!_ “Good afternoon, madam!” a deep voice booms from the direction of the counter. A massive θ, about the same size as Lo’kian, _spirits hold him,_ squeezes through the doorway and slides behind the counter with flared mandibles. He is not a Vakarian, but his markings are nearly the same cobalt color and have a similar geometric inspiration. Like most northerners, he has silvery plates and appears very well-built to endure the environment up here. From the skin and plating she can see, he has earned his fair share of battle-scars, only they appear to be from claws and talons rather than gunfire.

_How can I help?_ “You may call me Nok! Are you just browsing? Looking for something in particular? Need recommendations? I’m here to help!”

_Aivo!_ “Stop intimidating the customer!” comes another voice from the room behind the counter, female. An _equally large_ female appears in the doorway who bears a striking resemblance to her mate, with no fewer scrapes and scratches along her plates and hide. Acronus just waits for the assault to cease before she can begin speaking.

_Apologies, aiva,_ comes the reply.

_Come closer,_ the female addresses her now with a welcoming smile. Lanaai accepts it because so far, these two have been the least judgmental turians she has ever met. Total strangers do not typically treat her like a person. She cannot help but smile back at their enthusiasm and their dynamic.

_Dearest,_ “Welcome Captain, I am Valira. Are you picking up something for you and your… soon-to-be mate, dear?” the female’s smile remains even as she begins to eye Lanaai up and down. It takes her a moment to remember that she has a notch, as Garrus pointed out to her, and her smile has placed it on display for them. Likewise, she notices they both have notches as well.

_I am,_ “We just arrived, and he’s attending to… some business. I would like to get him something – you know like comfort food – to take his mind off it when he gets back. I could use a recommendation, because I’m not familiar with the choices.”

_How sweet of you!_ “Of course. What does he like?”

“ _L’okryik_ from the mainland, _l’ok, ioro, celantorus_ very raw, medium-well _vi’okelsencus_ anything: flanks, shanks, chest, primes… roasted or fried _aivin_ cutlets… to name a few. He’s also a bit of an omnivore so he likes anything with _mervos,_ _viorvicalus,_ red _orkio…_ He likes everything to be seasoned with salt and _alpiment._ Just about anything sweet also. He has a…” _sweet tooth._ “Anything bitter is out. He despises anything that has even a hint of _dumal,_ in it. He’s not a fan of…” _what?_ Lanaai stops talking when she notices the massive grin on the elder’s mandibles.

_Adorable,_ “You two have been together since you were pups, haven’t you?”

_Uh,_ Lanaai hums while she figures out whether or not to answer the somewhat-personal question. Her plates raise and her skin flushes as her identity is reaffirmed by a total stranger. As if there was any doubt that Garrus was right before… her memories make her who she is as much as her behavior, and her identity is defined by her relationship with the world rather than her image of herself. Having Shepard’s memories makes her, undeniably, _his Lia_ because anyone with her memories would make them _his Lia._ Without knowing anything about her, the elder proved that this is true.

Relief and worry flood her system all at once while she avoids reacting outwardly to it. She cannot run from the truth, but she does not have to let it control her future. She is still allowed to be someone else. Having an existential crisis in the middle of butchers’ shop is the last thing she expected to happen today.

“I am very old, dear,” _I’ve seen a lot,_ “You only know a man that way if you’ve grown up together. They stop talking at such a young age…” _you have to be there, or you miss it_ she clicks her tongue and shakes her head, “then you settle down… and you have to teach them to unlearn the silence. So I take it he’s a colony boy?”

Lanaai supposes that she walked right into that one as well, because his tastes are incredibly indicative of where he grew up.

_Actually,_ “He was born here, but his family moved off-world for work when he was little.”

_I see,_ “Well then, let us bring him a taste of his homeland. Is he…” _pardon my asking,_ “does your soon-to-be happen to be a Vakarian?”

Lanaai raises a brow and wonders how that information will help.

_I apologize,_ the woman trills, “The Vakarian clan is a very prominent entity in _Verridan;_ Sons and daughters of Vakarian typically enjoy similar flavors.”

Lanaai nods, deciding that providing this information is not particularly dangerous, _he is._

_And pardon my asking once again,_ “Do you two share tastes?”

_Definitely,_ “I like anything that he does.”

_Spirits carry you both!_ “Wonderful! You just wait right there and we’ll prepare something that you’ll both enjoy. Take your minds off the war for a while.”

The auditor steps into the store a few moments later and loiters around near the doorway. His fully-armored, fully-masked, and fully-unmarked appearance earns critical glances from the massive couple behind the counter as they shuffle around. The two share some unintelligible conversation in what Lanaai assumes to be their _bonded language_ before they both disappear into the back room to prepare whatever it is they have in mind. Several minutes later, they return with one large and one small foil container. They accept payment for the larger item but deny payment on the smaller one; they simply nod towards the auditor.

_For your, uh, acquaintance,_ Nok rumbles, “Thank you for visiting, Distinguished Captain, we hope you and your soon-to-be will enjoy this very much,” _thank you, madam._

_Spirits carry you,_ Valira nods and then returns to the back room again.

_And you,_ Lanaai nods back.

Lanaai allows the feeling of this rather ordinary interaction to reassure her that there is some personality left inside her – or at least enough to present herself as genuine despite the fact that she is fake. It makes her feel hopeful about convincing the Vakarians that her relationship with Garrus is wound up and tightly bound without coming across as a false agent. She hands the smaller container to the auditor on her way out and he accepts it graciously yet silently. The two walk in silence back to their suite where they split off so that the auditor can retire to his own.

Garrus returns moments later looking defeated, so she pushes her way into his personal space to lend him her warmth.

_You were right,_ “you were completely right,” he sighs, the deflation of his lungs curls his spine forwards and presses his forehead against hers, forcing her to push back to support him.

_What?_ she trills, wishing to know what his parents had to say about her, but also wishing that she could have been wrong about it in the first place. Garrus explains what they told him and it all makes sense. They are profoundly intelligent individuals and they would always have a good reason for feeling a certain way. At least it was not that her plates were of a certain pigmentation or that her parents raised her on a colony planet… _racism._ She does find it surprising, however, that they wish to invite them back for spar and Second. It is odd, but Garrus gave her a chance so it must run in the family.

How fitting… a “Second” chance… over Second. It would be funny if it were not so depressing. Speaking of meals, she remembers they have their own comfort right here and directs him to the kitchenette. He begins to purr when he picks up the fragrance of well-seasoned and garnished meats. For the first time ages they sit down to eat together without the world applying pressure to them. She can barely remember a time when a simple meal felt like exactly that… just a simple meal.

_Spirits save me,_ “This is…” _amazing!_ his purr deepens as he continues to enjoy the strips of marinated meats from what seem to be different animals.

_Quite so!_ “Yeah, the lovely couple working in the butcher’s shop – Nok and Valira – down the street basically just handed it to me.”

_Odd,_ “So you didn’t order something directly?”

“Well… I said I was picking something up for my mate and they asked what you liked. So I told them, and this is what they came up with. Sad because I couldn’t go back and order more. I didn’t get the name of it, and the receipt doesn’t have the name either.”

_That’s so strange,_ “ _Verridan_ are known for being very hospitable. I’m sure they’d remember you if you went back there.”

_Maybe,_ she considers the possibility. Despite her partially-northern genetics she still sticks out like a broken mandible around here.

“Do you still have the foil?” Garrus asks between bites.

“Here,” she reaches over and grabs the container, which he holds over his head to see the bottom. Lanaai notices some scrawled words there that she cannot decipher, either because the handwriting is so sloppy that she does recognize the glyphs, or because they are in another language. Garrus hums and nods.

_Been quite some time,_ “Sloppy… it’s _Novataetran._ I can read it but I haven’t heard of this before.”

“At least we have something,” she responds. Her mind turns back to the plans for tomorrow, and since they are already speaking whatever comes to their minds she continues.

“I cannot believe you told them you would ask me for _permission,_ ” _ludicrous!_ she scoffs.

_Who else?_ “I love my parents, Lanaai, but I love you more,” _aiva._ “And… it’s been so long since I’ve seen them that I’ve gotten used to the separation. So they can huff and pout about how they dislike you and whatnot, but being snipey like that is not going to bring me back. If they make you uncomfortable like that again then we won’t go back to see them. Spin it however you like, they’re still both making assumptions.”

_That’s true, but,_ “Your dad outs people like me for a living. It would be like asking you to cooperate with a reaper.”

_That’s pushing it,_ “Wow, Lanaai. Somehow I don’t think that’s quite the same…”

_We won’t talk about it,_ “You know what? No existentialism at the dinner table… or ever. Woman at the shop nearly sent me into another episode-”

_What?_ Garrus chirps anxiously.

“-so I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime. Sorry I brought it up,” _I shouldn’t have reminded you._

“Lanaai?” _tell me?_ he tries.

“It was something she said… not like she knew,” _not like I knew either._

She did not mean to shoot down the conversation. The forbidden word made its way in when she said “reaper” without thinking about it. Now the reaper’s “prophecy” is on their minds again and how long they have left until it comes true. Lanaai still has a sinking feeling in her chest when she thinks about it, and the end of the war did not feel like the end of the problem. The reaper had also been correct; both sides committed genocide, only one side happened to be _better_ at it… _hers._

Spar and Second with the Vakarians goes as poorly as she expects it to, but she is grateful for the chance. Now that she knows Castis will be unable to look at her without seeing a double-agent there is nothing she can do or say in their few hours together that will win his heart. He is tolerating her because he trusts Garrus’ word. Avita is hardly any better, cuing off her mate’s anxiety. Her inherent nervous energy does not help, either.

It would have been much worse going into this without knowing why, but at least now she finds closure and consistency in the stiff greeting, the stiff conversation, and the stiff goodbye. They will not be coming back here anytime soon. Garrus apologizes to her on their behalf, but she can tell that he was also expecting spar and Second to play out as it did. They move on with their lives, deciding to cut their break period short to begin the moving process early, but not before they see the scribe.

The anticipation mounts as their appointments arrive, and she finds herself by his side – hiding – while he speaks with the scribe. She has never personally visited a scribe before, and despite finding familiarity in this interaction from ghosts of her host’s memories, she is mostly lost here. Garrus knows exactly what to say and which paperwork to provide to the elder, who seems relieved that he is so easy to work with. The elderly female Vakarian floats with the two of them into a room off from the main waiting area, and the automatic door seals them inside. A small cart with several jars stands in the center of the otherwise-empty room.

The graying female looks her over once Garrus is done speaking to her.

_My child,_ “Lanaai Acronus.”

_Yes!_ “Ma’am,” she responds a little too anxiously.

_A word of warning,_ the elder speaks with a soft, raspy voice that demands respect despite the lack of force behind it, “I have been present to bring many males and females into our house. Some have very… _strong…_ reactions. Remember that your mate is your anchor,” _through all things,_ “and you may hold on to him if you need to.”

_What?_ her anxiety mounts, not entirely sure what that is supposed to mean.

“Let us begin,” the woman commands without responding.

Garrus and the elder begin to remove their armor without any forewarning. She forces her arms to move, and by the time she has her chest plate off, Garrus approaches her, already naked and positively shining, to help her with the rest of her armor. His beauty always seems to catch her off-guard, and she may never get used to seeing all him at once. She feels vulnerable, but she supposes that is the goal; this process is about trust, and especially when it involves the tying of two halves into one.

The elder, wearing only a cowl-and-shoulder wrap, ornately decorated with an infinite mapping of patterns and whose name Lanaai still does not know, clips old-fashioned optical lenses onto her brows and turns to the cart.

_Here,_ she points to the center of the room. Lanaai obeys and continues to hold her breath while this process unfolds. The elder steps aside, looks at Garrus, and gestures to the cart.

_Your mate,_ the old woman rumbles, _your canvas._

_What?_ Lanaai squeaks. She had no idea _Garrus_ was going to be inscribing her markings. Uh oh.

_He requested,_ the scribe replies plainly, _I help._

Garrus does not need to be told what to do. He reaches for the enamel stripping agent first and does as his parents did over two decades prior. Lanaai watches as he exits this world and steps into his own personal reality, concentrating with such intensity that nothing exists except the task. She was worried she would be ungracefully aroused by his touch, confidence, and proximity, but watching his absolute focus is equal parts sobering and fascinating. This is rare, a true gem to witness, so she must savor it while it lasts.

He begins to coil around her, slowly, like smoke.

She still leans into his hand when he palms her cheek plate and holds her head completely still. The stripping agent is cool as it goes down, but heats up and prickles as it works away the outer enamel coating. It is uncomfortable and foreign, but not painful. When he drags the washcloth across her face, however, she winces. His reaction is instantaneous: cooing softly and calming his movements. She eyes the cloth as he hands it back to the elder, tinted sky blue with the small amount of her blood it soaked up as it reached the epidermal layer.

The longer she stares the more she seems to float away.

The scribe helps Garrus focus by handing him exactly what he needs when he needs it. Without looking away from her, Garrus takes the clean brush, dips it in the Vakarian Cobalt, and paints onto the highly-sensitive, exposed layer of skin. She tries not to jerk her head again at the sudden frigidity of the pigment. He applies several more coatings of pigment and finishes with a single layer of some kind of clear lacquer. Then he switches to the other side of her face, slipping his hand under her jaw and his fingers underneath her mandibles to avoid smearing his work. She holds up now that she knows what to expect, and Garrus repeats with perfect precision. He places down a single additional line below the Varai-Vakarian Bridge on her nasal plates, but he does not add the line from her chin to her lower lip.

_There you are,_ he purrs as his crows nears hers. She waits for him to make contact but he just gets closer and closer. He pushes past her plates and skin and fills her lungs with warmth. Her eyes widen and she clamps her hand around his wrist while she begins to feel weightless in his presence. He seems to be all around her at once.

She returns as he pulls away to admire her. He nods to the scribe, _thank you._

_Spirits above,_ she gasps, “what in spirits’ n-”

_Perfect work, pup,_ the elder hums to Garrus as she inspects Lanaai as well, turning her head slightly this way and that, “you have brought pride and honor to your clan, my child,” she finally speaks.

_Thank you, maera,_ Garrus simple bows his head, still not entirely part of reality yet. His gaze is still fixed on her face, but not her eyes. He breathes in and closes his eyes, and he returns as he releases the air. His mandibles flare into a smile.

_It is complete,_ “I believe you two are due back here in several days,” the scribe says as she begins to replace her undersuit and softshell armor, _listen,_ “Between now and then, do not get water on the marking otherwise it will expand and your enamel will come in unevenly. You may feel sick or light-headed,” _that is normal._

_I cannot stress this enough,_ “Listen closely because this often irritates young, _anxious_ partners: Master Vakarian-” Garrus’ head perks up at the mention of his name, and he pauses to listen, “-will seek to do everything for you. He does not think you are weak or incapable, he simply wants to make your life as easy as possible.”

_Uh,_ “I’m stil in the room,” Garrus rumbles, but Lanaai responds directly to the advice.

“Won’t be an issue. I know him,” _as long as I can remember._

_Good,_ “Then you shall have no troubles.”

Garrus is upon her as soon as the scribe exits her personal space, already attempting to help her replace her armor. She can tell her grin is crooked, and not because her mandibles are sore. She cannot stop smiling as he takes her arm and follows her from the room. He stops for a moment to confirm the followup and then returns to her side to escort her to their skaivette.

* * *

He cannot stop looking at her. _Lanaai Vakarian. His._ Just like the first time he painted cobalt on her he finds truth in his dreams; only now it is permanent. Once they return home he already begins his doting and his attempts to free her from any fatigue. Luckily they are between obligations right now and he can afford to be totally distracted by her. Nothing can tear him away. He did not think the scribe’s “warning” to Lanaai could be so accurate, but he _has_ to help her or else he will die. To her credit, she seems to be taking it well. Without offering any resistance, she allows him to disassemble her armor and work her out of her compression suit. He gingerly fastens a more comfortable waist wrap around her exposed skin.

Despite knowing the opposite to be true, he feels as if touching her will break her. When she slides onto his chest later that night, smelling particularly sweet with arousal, his nervousness starts to get the better of him. Luckily, it seems his mate understands and makes no attempts to draw him into a energetic state. She giggles at his apprehension.

_It’s just my face, aivo_ “Unless you planned on doing something kinky with my face, Garrus, then you need not be concerned.”

_Sorry,_ “Don’t tempt me.”

_Not sorry,_ “Don’t tempt _me,_ ” she replies as his finally guideplates cooperate and he is able to slip inside her. His chest plates relax and she sinks in when he wraps his arms around her.

_Happy?_ “Is this what you dreamed of?” he asks. She sighs when he flares his platelets.

_For so long,_ she sighs with contentment, “Yes. Starting when you took your markings; I wanted to _belong._ Once I-” she gasps as he yanks his length from her and plunges back in, _spirits,_ “-once I realized that I needed more than your friendship, it was more about belonging _to you,_ ” _and staying yours._

_I am so happy you are here,_ he purrs, “The universe is a strange place. Multi-dimensional weaponry… Reapers… coming back from death _as a turian_ … people who insist on drinking Taetrans with cream.”

Her laugh is cut off by another thrust, and her sheath contracts around his appendage so tightly that he cannot move. She moans and her shoulders fall forward.

_Just take me,_ “alright shut your mouth and fuck me, Garrus,” she gasps. He growls and responds to her body’s call. Then once again in the morning before they leave the nest. Then again in the shower stall before they turn on the water. He has to hold onto her to keep her legs from giving out after putting her back down, and he struggles a bit as well. Their bodies finally have enough and he turns to massaging her legs in an effort to make it possible for her to walk without lingering soreness.

The enamel begins to form over her markings over the course of the three days between their inscription and the followup to begin the much longer mapping process. Garrus has designed enough chapters to cover her ventral and dorsal plating, but she has chosen to take them on slowly. The scribe has graciously given her blessing to allow him to write these chapters as well, after finding his work on her clan markings to be quite satisfactory. He does not find himself anticipating this as much as he expected he would, because it seems he has already gotten over the initial shock of marking her as a permanent member of the Varai-Vakarian clan.

The scribe welcomes them back and comments positively on Lanaai’s recovery thus far. They repeat the same process from before, and as soon as he sees the open expanse of his mates’ chest he starts to slip away. The scribe has the patterns with her, but Garrus has them memorized. The elder allows him to proceed on his own, only providing assistance if he needs it. If this goes well he may just purchase supplies from her and complete her map on his own.

Time is elusive when he is this applied. The stripping agent goes on and comes off in what seems like moments, while time flows slowly like the Vakarian Cobalt when he begins to paint it over her plates. The chapter suits her.

  
In defiance of death, the universe commanded this life into existence as a law of reality, to protect their people; to be their spirit. They are product of their memories and character, not the body that carries them.  


The pigment is coated with lacquer, then medigel, and then sealed underneath a plate-fitting bandage. Garrus double checks the lining on the bandages to make perfectly sure that there is no way irritants could leak in and mar the pigment. They thank the scribe for her services and Garrus resists the urge to carry her to the skaivette.

Once again they find themselves in the peace and quiet of their suite, and in the reassuring silence of one another’s company.

_Your parents,_ “Do you think you’ll miss them?” she asks, breaking the silence. Garrus stands up from his seat at her side and heads to the kitchenette to start making her another Taetran. He dumps the pre-ground Teatran into the press and then adds hot water.

_Of course,_ “I already do.”

_I wish I didn’t exist_ “I’m sorry,” she says very quietly. Garrus rumbles a growl; a warning. She has nothing to be sorry for, and this is simply how their paths flow towards the future. They return to silence as he waits for the water to pick up flavor. After counting exactly thirty-eight breaths he depresses the plunger and decants the beverage into Lanaai’s favorite mug.

He adds cream and watches it billow in the onyx liquid for a moment and then stirs with the thin, wooden mixing dowel. Once he is satisfied that the saccharine beverage is properly mixed, he returns to her and she accepts it from him graciously.

_Thank you,_ she purrs as she lifts her comfort to her lips and drinks.

“It’s always better when you make it,” she murmurs, _thank you so much._

_Anything, aiva_ he purrs.

The following day they pack up their belongings and prepare to transfer to Aurer’s project site. Garrus picks up the supplies he needs to inscribe chapters on his mate, and several cycles worth of preserved Novataetran cuisine so that they have something to snack on while they settle in and stress out from the move. He stops by his parents’ suite one last time to say goodbye and take the one possession he wants: his guitar. He may not return here for a long time, but he supposes it is for the best. This cold place is not his home anyway.

The Hierarchy is efficient, but corporations are more so. They are settled into their suite at Aurer’s research facility in a flash. Time slows back down as their immediate future becomes well-defined.

They find a routine together here, and in it they find comfort. Life is much simpler when they have a structure underneath it that does not constantly sling bullets at them. They are together when they are not working but separated during the day as their roles put them in different departments with different teams of people. Garrus finds it oddly refreshing to have assignments provided to him without the weight of millions of lives pushing down on his shoulders with every decision. He can see that Lanaai enjoys it as well as she slowly regains the spark that he remembers when he first met her two years prior. He makes friends with his coworkers and uses the camaraderie to mend the heart that shattered a long time ago.

The initial energy of their bonding has calmed to a warm, reassuring glow that shows no signs of dimming. He imagined life with her would be easy, and living with her has brought those predictions into reality. He is reminded of this everyday when he wakes up and prepares First with her, spars with her, helps her clean her plates in the shower or burnish her fringes, accompanies her to the project building… everything is easy with her.

* * *

The transition to Aurer’s research and design facility is simple with so few belongings to move. The living space they are provided is just large enough for two, but includes such amenities as a private sparring mat, a small hot spring for soaking, and a gas-powered hearth when the weather turns frigid. Lanaai greatly appreciates the scale of it despite the fact that some of the additions seem unnecessary. Garrus is visibly grateful to see that they have running hot water here, and that he will not have to share a sparring space with anyone else. Nothing makes her happier, however, than the fact that Garrus decided to bring his guitar with him; the first sign that he is altering his course and the only chance that she has to shift her own.

The first night they arrive he plays something.

He simply picks up the beautiful instrument, tunes it perfectly by ear, and then plays a song that she remembers from one of his last recitals before they parted… over fifteen years prior. She half-expected him to trip over some of the notes after going so long without touching the instrument, but she should have known better. He still makes the guitar sing under his fingers, and every note is clear and perfectly-plucked to match the flowing dynamics of the song. It is an acoustic arrangement of a piece by a turian “progressive metal” band – one of his favorites – with an odd meter and a layered rhythm whose individual, yet simple figures interlock to create an incredibly complex melody.

The superior hearing allows her to pick up on a number of nuances in his playing that she never noticed before. Each time he plays a note he subtly bends the string to produce a microtone that sounds far richer than the standard tuning. He moves his elbow on the body of the instrument to control with exacting precision how the wood resonates depending on the chord. She feels blessed to have the opportunity to hear it again.

_I’m a bit rusty,_ he hums as he plays.

_No way,_ she scoffs, still enraptured, “I’ll be the judge of that,” _you found the music._

He seems to have found more than that. They easily transition back into work-related roles as they integrate into their project teams with Aurer. The population here is overwhelmingly turian with several humans wearing environment suits, all of whom act suspiciously turian. She supposes that makes sense because she used to exemplify that paradox.

No one here knows who she is, but she does receive predictable treatment based on her appearance. Though, the Vakarian markings provide a rather effective barrier against most of the initial skepticism and her immediate coworkers realize quickly that she is not a plaything.


	42. Chapter 42

They barely last three sections.

He smells dried blood when he wakes up and begins to worry if he somehow injured his mate while they were sleeping. Garrus sits up abruptly, which tosses Lanaai off his chest and onto the opposite bank of the nest. She squawks and rights her self, preparing for a fight.

_What? What’s going on?_ she vocalizes, “Garrus?” _are you alright?_

He can see her begin to shift into “damage control” mode – she does this whenever he has… an episode.

_Yes. No. Something’s wrong,_ “I smell blood. Are you hurt?” he begins checking his skin in order to locate the source of the smell.

_Huh?_ she chirps shortly before picking up the scent.

_That’s yours,_ he growls as he recognizes it, “did I hurt you? Did I-”

“No!” _never!_ she barks back. He snaps his mouth shut and attempts to calm himself. She puts up with his episodes enough and she does not deserve to wake up to this. It takes a lot to hide his guilt from her. His eyes widen when he notices the origin of the scent. He leans forward slowly and takes her wrist in one hand to inspect the damage: a circular cut on her palm. He checks his talons for evidence of contact, but he finds none. Lanaai holds up the other hand, showing a talon tipped in the unsettling indigo of dried blood, and silently pronounces herself guilty… and extremely confused.

_You did this?_ he buzzes as he gingerly holds her injured hand in his and reaches for the medigel in the nest-side compartment with the other.

_Yes?_ “I don’t remember doing this. This wasn’t here when we went to sleep,” she scowls.

_I am concerned,_ “Is this… do you think this is like…”

Lanaai looks up at him with fear in her eyes and he grimaces. Hopes that she has remained immune to the effects of the Obelisk float away in an instant. He is already starting to think ahead to contacting his network and setting up appointments for her to see his therapists. He even considers reaching out to Liara to see if she would be willing to help, or knows anyone who could. Lanaai can see the gears turning in his mind. He _cannot_ allow her to suffer what he does, and always will.

_Probably nothing,_ she warbles before pulling herself out of the nest, distracting him momentarily with her beautiful, lithe body and the growing map of chapters adorning her plates in his color. For the sake of his own sanity, he forces himself to agree with her, knowing full well that it is _not_ “probably nothing.” He spends the rest of his work day thinking about it and cannot shake the feeling that something is dreadfully wrong or about to go wrong. He still manages to mask his paranoia well-enough that his fellow turians and his single, unusually-large, envirosuit-wearing human colleague say nothing.

Lanaai must have said something to Litha, because shortly after returning to their apartment he receives a message from the mysterious woman that commands him to meet up with her the following day at a specific location nearby. He does not protest because he is desperate, and the only person in the universe who knows Lanaai’s body better than he does is this woman. She will have the answers he needs in order to ease his troubled mind. When his mate returns, he keeps quiet about the whole affair because he knows she hates it when he is preoccupied with her, even when she knows he cannot help it. If he can avoid stressing her out he will gladly take that route instead.

Luckily, they both sleep soundly that night.

Garrus finds Litha exactly where the message said she would be: at a café in the nearby village. She abandons her Taetran as he approaches and meets him halfway, ushering him down the walkway so they can put some distance between themselves and any interested ears. The single auditor trailing him backs off significantly when Litha turns and glares at him.

_Good morning,_ “Hello, Master Vakarian,” she speaks with that highly-characteristic _Solgian_ accent that he remembers so well.

_Spirits guide you,_ he fishes around for something to say that can sound genuine without revealing his disdain for her, “A good morning to you as well. Uh… I hope you are doing well.”

_Let us avoid small-talk,_ “I am, thank you kindly. How are you and your mate holding up?”

Garrus snorts, _amazingly, Spirits carry her,_ “She is wonderful to be with. She seems quite happy to be working here and not firing guns at people.”

_It runs in her family, both,_ “I’m glad to hear it. She deserves it. But I understand something occurred that has her worried, because she contacted me yesterday.”

Garrus does not quite understand the information game she is playing with him, but he assumes she just wants to hear him confess the same thing that Lanaai did.

_I am worried,_ “That’s right. I assumed she talked to you because otherwise we wouldn’t be talking right now.”

Garrus glances around, noticing how eerily-quiet their surroundings have become. The entire boulevard has emptied out now that spar and Second is generally over. Litha continues to walk down the sidewalk with an obvious destination in mind, but he cannot see any indication of one. They have left the main stretch and have entered into the transition zone between civilian accommodations and industrial delivery ports for the development facility. Litha directs him to a sleek, unlabeled, midsize dropship.

_Going somewhere?_ he asks, stopping. He refuses to board a craft if he has no idea where it is headed.

_Relax,_ “it’s private. It’s mine,” _we aren’t going anywhere._

Garrus narrows his eyes. He does not trust this woman, but the entire craft is cold with no signs of an imminent startup. However, knowing of her and her _previous work,_ he would not put it past her to have control over technology that no one knows about.

_Trust me,_ “I brought her back to you… and I brought you back to her. Do you think I would pull you apart?” _tell me,_ “do you think the universe would allow me?”

Garrus does not agree with her reasoning, but he steps into the dropship anyway because he really does need to hear what Litha has to say. They take seats across from each other in the narrow fore section of the cargo bay and he prepares himself to hear whatever demonic secrets she holds about his mate.

“Lanaai-” _my daughter,_ she begins, Garrus’ eyes widen slightly as he realizes exactly why Lanaai looks the way she does and why Litha is so invested in her safety. And, in the several instants before he hears the next word, he begins to wonder _why his Lia, and why Lanaai Acronus_ for the first time since she revealed herself to him several sections ago.

“-was born from the woman you loved, and from a woman you never met. The woman who introduced herself to you after two years apart was mostly the former,” _two identities, three perhaps._ Hearing her speak so nonchalantly about such an impossible feat is jarring; she seems to have no idea that bringing back someone from death is _wrong._

_We are watching her,_ “Lanaai,” _my daughter,_ “may be experiencing a resurgence of her host identity’s consciousness when her own is idling away in dreams. We do not know how much her previous identity will take hold of her because this is unexplored territory… why we have her under a six decade research contract to study it,” _a blessing and a curse._

“What!?” _you cannot be serious!_ This is the first Garrus has heard about this. He does not know whether or not he should be angry with Lanaai for neglecting to tell him such a thing, or if she even _knows._ Litha is unmoved by his outburst.

“For your sake and hers, the identity she assumed is who she is. She may already have explained herself to you under the guise she wears for the rest of us, but you will only know what she explains,” _or we risk losing her._

_No more risks,_ he trills nervously, shoulders tensing.

_Calm yourself,_ “I suspect that she is taking up the memories of her identity host, and that this may be manifesting… primarily while she sleeps. In this case, I hypothesize that she wanted to leave a little message for herself for the next time she… ‘wakes up.’ I want you to watch for these. I want you to notify me of these events if they become dire,” _you will do so or I will make you,_ she commands. Litha never _asks,_ and her coworkers never argue. Garrus can tell he does not want to make an exception to this. He hates her, but he has to do what she says. He may know people of high tier, but she knows people who are so dangerous and so powerful that they do not exist. She may even know Gods.

_Be personable,_ “interact with Lanaai when her host – also named Lanaai – speaks to you. Listen to what she has to say, if anything. If she starts to… how shall I say?” _encroach, choke, obfuscate_ “…change during her waking hours, then contact me immediately. Consider that to be ‘dire.’”

Garrus shifts uncomfortably, but he believes every word.

_I have no choice,_ “What a disaster,” he mutters, _she is no more than your experiment._

Litha glares at him and growls, _never!_ “Do not insinuate that I care nothing for _my-_ for her, Master Vakarian! Just because we have the contract does not mean she is property. She never has and never will be _property._ Life is not property.”

Garrus cannot empathize with Litha, but he also wants to avoid charging into conflict with someone who could make him disappear without a trace. She tore two souls away from death to give life back to them both. He may never grasp the entire reason why she decided this.

“Why did you do it?” _why do this to anyone?_ he finally blurts, unable to keep down the overwhelming desire to hear her explain herself. Litha remains silent for some time, until it becomes terrifying. He becomes acutely-aware of the weight of his sidearm at his hip. Her features begin to show emotion, which is surprising for some reason. For a woman that seems so much like a machine, she shows evidence that she is alive.

“A number of critical truths aligned. Shepard’s spectacular reputation and the threat of something only you and she understood; the fact that Cerberus arrived seconds after the _Nocveus_ was disabled to search for her body; Command’s desperation to defend their specie; my recent failure to… _another_ failure to… to…” _I can’t,_ she bows her head and frowns. The faintest keen escapes her throat.

This is not how he expected this conversation to go.

“I cannot have children,” _and I fear death, and I fear pain,_ “and after the third miscarriage… I had the opportunity to give someone else who needed a second chance everything that was taken from me. I had to prove that it was possible…” she has regained her composure now, “she will save so many lives. She saved _yours._ ”

“Why _her?_ ” he asks, still mostly stunned. In his limited experience, individuals with history like Litha’s tend to see reality differently. She thinks she is doing right by some spirit and it is not her fault. Turians cannot handle miscarriage at almost any level, so _three_ would tear any female’s mind to pieces. Evolution and instinct are both cruel. The bond between two individuals, two halves that seem impossible to separate, can be easily annihilated by it. Modern medicine has been unable to produce an agent powerful-enough to save a bond.

He has never thought to fear it until now, but he has heard accounts… A female who miscarries will smell like a rotting corpse to her mate for several periods, as if to provide a constant reminder of the death she caused and her betrayal of his bloodline. Her body will cease to produce the common β and the unique ε pheromones that tie her to her mate, and his body will begin to reject hers even if he can bear the stench. In the absence of relief the θ or φ will inevitably need someone who can sate him, which usually ends any semblance of friendship between the former lovers. Suicide is often the only way out that broken men and women can see. Few recover.

Litha seems far too young to be bonded and broken three times. Garrus imagines the pain she has suffered is similar to his own nightmares. He would go to any length to prevent another living soul in this galaxy from the same fate. He has finally identified a piece of Litha that he recognizes. It does not make her right, but at least now it makes _sense._

“It was in our best interest to provide Shepard with the means to save us. Someone else would have if we hadn’t, but we knew her better. We knew she needed to be someone else,” _she was the only choice,_ her voice is hard again. Litha has a point even if he still disagrees with her reasoning. Their personalities differ too much for him to see almost anything as she does.

_I will watch her,_ he chirps to calm the frothing woman before him.

_Yes you will,_ “good,” comes the terse reply. She stands and directs him to leave the craft while she stays behind, _until next time,_ “Goodbye, Master Vakarian. Keep her safe.”

He begins his walk back to the project facility and pauses briefly to look back at the ship. It is completely gone without any trace it was ever there: no thermal signature on the ground, no EM fluctuation, no disturbance in the ME field. He shudders and attempts to return his mind to work before he physically arrives there, otherwise someone will notice and start asking questions.

_So tense,_ “What has you all worked up?” Lanaai nuzzles his throat as they curl up together for their sleep cycle.

_Sometimes I worry,_ is all he replies.

Lanaai pulls her her head back and gazes at him with an equal mixture of love and concern. He is abusing her trust right now; she thinks he is referring to his recurring nightmares and she will continue to think so while he lies to her face. He wonders if Litha realizes what she asked him to do was _wrong,_ but in the interest of keeping his mate from falling apart, he has to do exactly as her… _maker…_ instructed.

They sleep soundly, and in the morning his paranoia ebbs. Their morning routine takes him down several levels of stress while they spar, shower, clean themselves, prepare First, clean up their dishes, and speak softly about their upcoming day. They walk to the project center together and part with a quick brush of crowns. He turns his mind to the mass driver project he has been assigned to and hopes for more success with optimizing energy consumption. Once these low-cost and high-efficiency multi-role craft leave the manufacturing lines, their outer colonies will finally be able to breathe and _eat._

Another two sections of sound sleep for both himself and his mate is nearly long-enough to convince him that neither of them are troubled.

_Sorry,_ “hello?” his eyes shoot open up when Lanaai speaks to him in the middle of their sleep cycle; an unnatural occurrence. If Lanaai wakes up during the night she never speaks, so he assumes that her “host” is expressing itself. He knows very little about the true “Lanaai Acronus” because neither does she, but he may be able to learn if this encounter turns out positively… “positive” is surely a relative term. Right now he has no idea what to say to her, because he has no idea what could possibly be going through her mind.

_Are you okay?_ “how does your hand feel? You injured it.”

_I did,_ “seems all fixed,” her voice has that pleasing accent to it.

Garrus notices that so far, Lanaai has made no effort to escape from him and wonders if Lia is bleeding across the divide. Perhaps the host has much less control over her body than he worried it might.

_Do you feel safe?_ “how are you feeling?” he tries.

_Very,_ “I feel warm here. I love you very much. I don’t want to go back.”

_What?_ his stomach drops and he tightens his hold on her, “where is ‘back,’” he commands.

She does not answer his question, responding instead by pushing her face into his neck and reciprocating his embrace. Her breathing evens out and she returns to sleep, but he cannot. He holds her tightly to his chest and wonders what hell the other Lanaai must be going through to cause her to say such a thing. He does not mention it in the morning in the same way he knows she does not speak about his episodes when they occur without his knowledge. Why are they lying to each other?

Another period passes without incident, but he remains prepared for it. He can detect a shift even in his sleep and wakes up as she does.

_Welcome back,_ he purrs. Last time she said she loved him, so he will give her the benefit of the doubt and believe her until she tells him more.

_So warm,_ she replies and inches closer.

_Are you well?_ he chirps.

_Now I am._

_Tell me,_ “what did you do today?” he hopes she will respond with something.

_Progress,_ “we think we found something, way out here in the middle of nowhere.”

_Interesting,_ he is now genuinely curious to know more, “can you explain?”

_No?_ “We aren’t sure where exactly. We aren’t sure what. But it’s unusual,” _and I’m worried._

_Please,_ he needs more information from her “do you need any help?”

_You stay out of this,_ “I don’t want to put you in harm’s way. You are safe here. I don’t want to go back but I have to. You have to stay here,” _so I can come back to you._

She shifts in his arms and he moves to accommodate.

_Thank you,_ “thank you for protecting me, I love you so much,” _Spirits are powerless to separate us,_ she murmurs softly before returning to sleep, purring softly.

Perhaps he looks forward to speaking to the other Lanaai more than it is healthy to admit. He keeps his head mostly clear of it and enjoys his time with his Lanaai, reveling in the joy she has found from working on her designs and speaking about them passionately. He works his way back into the music, and she is always an eager audience when he practices. He does this for her as much as he does it for himself; her happiness and his own are linked together now, so anything he does that makes her content will reach him.

With his superiors handling the political restructuring on the citadel and the fallout from adding the quarians – _and now the geth_ – to the council, he feels freer to devote his mental capacity away from whether or not the galaxy will rebuild itself. It will… and if he is needed elsewhere he will go as long as Lanaai is with him. Blackwatch has reached out to him several times with requests to advise fleet maneuvers and occasionally meet up with officials.

His sister remains cutoff from him and his parents do not speak to him. He wonders if he should attempt to hold onto a faltering relationship with them when he hardly knows them anymore. Command would be displeased if he tried to talk to Solana. Even if he does not care what they think, it would put Sol directly under the watch of the auditors, and he just wants her to live her life freely.

Sidonis and Nissus are together now. It surprises both himself and Lanaai, but it makes sense because Ti is the only woman left in the galaxy who understands Altay. He half-expected that she and Talus would bind based on how often they smelled like each other and how friendly they became, but once they were separated by Command they no longer spoke. Sidonis stayed with her, however.

Garrus and Lanaai are both eligible to attend their bonding ceremony. They will be the only remaining “family” that his two former squadmates have left with the privilege to be there. To the rest of the galaxy, they simply do not exist. Someday they may come back from obscurity if they ever earn exemption and raise a child together, but until then they will remain invisible. At least they will be together. He and Lanaai secure time off and travel to Taetrus to attend Ti and Altay’s bonding ceremony.

Taetrus, like most of the Hierarchy’s colonies, has struggled to rebuild itself with the same enthusiasm as many cities on Palaven have. They lack the resource throughput and the economic stability to enjoy the same growth, but they are slowly regaining their pride and grandeur. Vallum was completely razed by the reapers, so the inhabitants here are refugees and survivors. The average age plummeted. A poorly-named “Little Rannoch” sector has taken root where a high concentration of quarians now live and refuse to leave, finding the idea of returning to Rannoch with active geth too terrifying. The streets are clean and the buildings are clad in white and chrome and cobalt, reminiscent of Palaven’s architecture.

Ti and Altay greet them warmly when they arrive in the private gathering space booked for this event. There are several other turians here Garrus has never met before, excluding the auditors standing in the corners of the room watching the windows. Garrus introduces himself to these people as a courtesy to the Sidonis couple, even though he knows that this is the only time in his life he will see them.

Seeing Ti and Altay together makes him feel an odd and overwhelming sense of relief. It is always strange to witness a bonded φ because they are so… _promiscuous_ by nature. Altay was always a bouquet of scents while serving aboard various craft, but now he only smells of his mate. He never saw them drawn together during his service with them, but their interactions are so intimate and so relaxed that he cannot help but wonder: _what changed?_ There is an answer somewhere, but he refuses to search for it.

Ti and Altay’s bond is pure and unmarred by otherworldly spirits, and he is slightly envious of it. Garrus’ love for Lanaai is powerful and deeply-refined, but it is stained with his nightmares and her division. Altay does not wake her up in the middle of the night with sheeting enamel, wild eyes and cries for help. Altay does not dream of hell. Ti does not host two conscious minds, both of which suffered death and both of which remain scarred simultaneously. He cannot stop thinking about this as he speaks with his former squadmates and avoids the subject of their work for the past several sections that lead to their union.

Ti and Altay are both beautiful, and observing the reality of the bond between them makes them even more so. Ti already took on Sidonis’ markings: a far cry from the intricate white swirls of the now-defunct Nissus clan. The simple lavender blocks and the single _infra_ stripe that runs from chin to lower lip leaves their faces clean and open to glow at one another while the officiator confirms their status as tied. Garrus has never had a chance to look in on this process and this may be the only one he has. He and Lanaai did not have time. His sister will miss him at her bonding ceremony.

After they cut their palms and bind their wrists, they are declared bonded. The ten individuals in the audience chirp and thrum in applause, and welcome back a single individual where there used to be two. Garrus and Lanaai do not stay longer than they need to, especially since Altay and Ti will want to do nothing more than rut themselves into a stupor in celebration. Ti approaches him as they are heading out and presses her forehead against his quickly. He feels gratitude and sorrow, and there is something hidden in their time apart that neither have told him.

Several sections later the happily-bonded Sidonis couple announce the expected birth date of their little θ, Geran Sidonis. It forces Garrus to think about children and whether or not he should bring up the topic with Lanaai. He is not entirely sure what he wants and even less so regarding his mate. He knows she would never start the discussion herself, so if he expects to speak with Lanaai about it then he will have to initiate. He can tell Lanaai is thinking about it as well since receiving the notice, and without words they both agree that now is not the right time; but they _will_ bring their own children into to this galaxy eventually.

Litha’s words strike fear into his bones whenever he thinks about the risks. Miscarriage is so astronomically rare for turians that most people never consider it, but knowing what Litha went through makes him unreasonably paranoid. He has yet to say anything to Litha about Lanaai’s changes because he does not find them dangerous-enough, but he considers asking her how her mate was able to deal with it.

* * *

They spend a year with Aurer before the Command removes them forcefully and assigns them to a high-priority deployment. Lanaai thought they were past this, but she always had a niggling thought that this would happen; she always had a guilty hope that it would. Where she finds profound fulfillment in the engineering work she does for Aurer, she can tell that the lack of blood she spilled on behalf of the abruptly-terminated lives of her brothers and sisters is crying out to her. She wants to fight beside Garrus again and watch him play his rifle like a drum with the same arousing mastery that he has over his instruments and his body. She wants to dance with him now that she knows how. She wants to defend her people directly.

Something else is changing about her as well. She finds it increasingly-difficult to suppress her accent these days and she is not entirely sure why. It simply feels easier to speak without the perfect rounded vowels and crisp syllables that turians consider to be “accent-less.” She cannot quite tell if anyone at work notices her slips, but Garrus certainly does. He never says anything about it either because he knows why, or because he is deliberately avoiding it. She never asks.

_Aivo?_ “Are you disappointed, Garrus?” she inquires softly. He never had a say in this, and she has no idea if his head is where hers is.

“I’m disappointed that we weren’t given more time to say goodbye,” _but…_ “but I know we’ve both been _itching._ I’m ashamed to admit,” _I want to go back there._

She chuckles darkly, _you want blood,_ “always the adrenaline junkie, aren’t you Garrus?”

_I want blood,_ he props his mandibles up and shrugs, “What can I say? You know me too well, Lanaai. I think it was naïve to assume that I would be able to deny whatever it was I picked up from my father’s side.”

_Is that so?_ “You think Castis is the violent one?” _surprised, but then again…_

“He is an ω” _and that means a lot,_ “I doubt he can make it through one section without shooting someone.”

_What are we?_ “Are we monsters?” she asks.

Garrus shrugs in response, _so what,_ “it’s all relative.”

Lanaai snorts, _no,_ “that’s an awfully shitty attitude, don’t you think?”

_True,_ “well… yeah. But that doesn’t make it false. It takes monsters to fight monsters.”

_You’re a handful,_ “you and your ridiculous moral relativism at five in the morning.”

_You love it, aiva,_ “Who else. Someone has to keep you on your pads.”

_I do, aivo,_ “I really do.”

He answered her question indirectly, but he answered it honestly, and she finds solace in knowing that he feels the same sense of restlessness following their inability to deploy during the final periods of the reaper war. She knows there is a darker side of him that he still keeps hidden from her – the same one that took hold of him during their years apart and the years following her death. It was supposed to die when they bonded, but nothing can ever really be that simple.

They wrap up their work and Aurer thanks them quietly for their service, replacing their positions overnight with other perfectly-qualified, starving individuals. The multi-role starship design stages are nearing completion and they will have the chance to see them produced and flown to the aid of the still-struggling colonies. Though, if their deployment briefing is anything to go by, some of these colonies may not survive long-enough to reap the benefits of her and her and mate’s work.

The political landscape has remained relatively the same since the war with the reapers ended, and adding the quarians and geth to the council created more stability if anything – both councilors chosen to represent their species are highly intelligent and their voices of reason force the council to make decisions that make sense. However, that tentative peacetime within the council space, facilitated by the remainders of the Hierarchy’s grand fleet, the Alliance, and the massive quantity of geth cruisers left-over from the heretic purge, is slipping away.

Piracy and raiders are trivial. Political corruption and corporate espionage are not. Atlas cells such as Cerberus, turian separatists, and information brokers all play dirty. The Hierarchy’s best infiltrators have evidence that Atlas is getting incredibly handsy with “recovery efforts,” which includes sending probes into turian colonies well outside the reaches of human-governed space. The Hierarchy does not want to tangle with humanity because the Alliance would immediately become involved and war might break out – a war that would leave humanity in ruins. There are dark forces at play, and she dislikes that information is being kept from her; information is being kept from _Garrus,_ and he practically runs Blackwatch now.

The Hierarchy just lost contact with the recently-reestablished mining colony on Kodara, a primary source of raw materials, namely element zero, silicon, and graphene; her home and her prison; her father’s fiery tomb. Evidence of tampering is apparent, and the specialists who downed the QEC relay were definitely professionals with access to expensive hardware.

Their friends begin to reach them as well. T’soni wants to go after the Shadow Broker now that she knows their location. Solus contacts her mate for the first time in a year and says he needs help with a sensitive situation, without providing any details. Zorah and Legion have tentatively requested assistance with a new wave of extremist Quarians who wish to eradicate the geth for good. Williams and Kryik are investigating a prickly Cerberus operation that has them incredibly worried, so the more experts they have with them the better. An anonymous omni-id contacts her mate claiming to be from Aegis, wishing to recruit both of them… whatever that means.

One problem at a time. One foot before the other.

They have work to do. Ti and Altay will not be joining them, citing the arrival of their firstborn son on the nearing horizon. She is happy for them, but dismayed that she will have to rebuild her trust in the skills of someone else. She is unable to change that feature of her personality, and it does not help that her assumed identity also had the same anxiety during her lifetime; she can feel it bleeding into her own thoughts.

She and Garrus are both designated “agents,” both of whom will report to a captain they have yet to meet. At least she will be able to drop into the field and ensure that _her Garrus_ is safe at all times. They have a long journey ahead of them, but she has the means to forge ahead. They have powerful friends and family. She has Garrus.


	43. Epilogue

Many years have passed and yet they still thrive. They both bear the scars of their endeavors, but they are just as beautiful as they ever were.

Two individuals – three depending on perspective – share a nest in a single body, and despite not knowing one so well, even after speaking with her in these night cycles, he loves both of them. Lanaai wakes him up, thrashing in his arms more so than “usual.” He calls out to her to pull her into this world, unable to predict which woman is going to come out of the nightmare, but prepared to speak with either one.

At some point he let it slip to Lanaai that he finds her accent to be pleasing, and she confessed that it had grown challenging to suppress it. As a result, she no longer makes an effort to hide it when she speaks. People who knew her before the shift find it jarring, but they are so few and so far apart that it makes no difference. The only problem now is that Garrus cannot always tell whose memories are at the shores of her consciousness. Litha predicted that the divide between them would heal, and that both parts of her would simultaneously realize the existence of the other. Garrus can tell it has not happened yet, but he is prepared for it.

 _Wake up!_ “Lanaai!” _aiva! Spirit!_ he shouts her name and she bolts upright, panting. She looks around the dark sleeping pod and finds him there with her, calming down immediately despite her heaving chest. She stares at him, shocked and disturbed. She places a hand on her breast as if she is hurt, but he sees no injury there. Garrus reaches out and covers her hand with his own. Who is she tonight? What new detail will be revealed? She was just recently investigating an anomaly above an unidentified garden planet somewhere between the Silean Nebula and Trebia.

 _What’s wrong?_ “Nightmares?” he leans forward and presses his crown into hers. She gasps as her body seems to open up and draw in warmth from him. The sensation is always so surreal and so profound that he is still not used to it, even after all this time. She simply nods in response to his question.

 _I remember it all,_ “I know… I was there…” she gasps. Garrus keeps his forehead against hers, feeling the onset of headache. He replies in as soothing a tone as he can manage, and reminds himself to contact Litha first thing in the morning.

 _At your pace,_ “If you want to talk, you know I’m here to listen. You _know_ that. We both know what it’s like,” he purrs.

 _A long night ahead,_ “You already know most of this, don’t you?”

 _I’m sorry,_ “you caught me,” she just outed one of his greatest lies since things changed, and he has no idea what she must be thinking right now.

 _It’s only fair,_ she sighs, “I lied to you for so long, for your safety and mine, so I understand why you did it,” _you are beautiful, aivo, no words can express my gratitude,_ “I’ll start from the beginning, for continuity’s sake…” _there were two,_ she sounds determined. He ponders what she means by “there were two.” She said she remembers it all.

There _were_ two… and now there is _one._

It has happened. Litha was right.

“The first thing I can remember is my father purring to me as I rested safely inside his cowl,” _nothing felt safer._

As he reclines with her and listens as she begins to speak he notices that Lia, her host, and the woman he knows as “Lanaai” are no longer separated. The woman in his arms is a product of both, and he may have to learn to love someone entirely new again; he may not, however, and perhaps his paranoia is just getting the better of him again.

As she speaks it is evident that she possesses every memory, so she takes her time and recounts her lives in detail. He knows they have all the time in the universe now, but their children – their beautiful little θ and girl, Kaepler and Tara Vakarian – do not.


	44. HC Notes/Terminology

  * I use Greek letters because they are outside of the English alphabet, and they can be used to represent concepts that English cannot. I chose Greek because it’s generally accessible and used in mathematics.

  * Turians count and think in hexadecimal:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,Α,Β,C,Δ,Ε,Φ,10,11…

  * Turians have a rank that provides them with a title and position in the military relative to their superiors and subordinates. Turians have tiers that classify their merit and what resources they have access to. Higher tiers are lower in number. Turians are also “classified” by how “dangerous” they are or how difficult it is to exert control over them. These classes begin with “alpha” α. Turians do not present themselves by class or regularly share it; it is just something that they are aware of, like age.

There are six classes in order: α (alpha), β (beta/vita/vee’ta), γ (gamma), δ (delta/thelta), λ (lamda/lamtha), ω (omega)

An individual classified as τ (tau/tahf) is considered so dangerous that protocol is in place to keep them appeased rather than contained. They are not well-understood because they are so rare.

Auditors have the task of evaluating individuals and determining their class. They also track ω and τ to keep others safe from them as well as to keep them safe from others.

  * Turians have “two and a half” genders which are mapped to analogs as we understand them: female, θ (theta/thita) male, and φ (phi) male.

The majority of turian “males” are θ.

φ are more effeminate and no one can quite agree on their evolutionary purpose. They are rare and sought-after, and generally considered to be beautiful and desirable as they represent the attractive traits of females and males all at once. They produce common α pheromones (from males) and β pheromones (from females) which means they can sate any other turian. They are considered “male” because they possess the male sexual organs and can only bind and produce offspring with females.

The idea behind the use of theta and phi is that they are geometrically similar, but the orientation of the line is changed. In mathematics θ and φ are frequently seen together as complementary angles or representing components of an angular coordinate. The horizontal line implies the larger, wider stature of the θ male. The φ has the vertical line to imply the narrower build of the φ male.

  * Units of time:

A “day” is used while on a planet. A “cycle” is used while onboard a starship and while actively serving the military.

A “period” is ten days or cycles (week)

A “section” is four periods (month)




**Author's Note:**

> This shouldn't be an issue, but I thought I would give some context: I had the outline down before several similar, superior works in this category were published; most of this story was plotted independently of external influence from those works. It is not without inspiration, however, and no work of art exists in a vacuum. I hope that my interpretation finds you well.


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